Artists at Work: Julia Haft-Candell
by Anna Katz
For nearly a decade, Julia Haft-Candell’s ceramic sculptures have been drawn from a consistent vocabulary of forms: knots, combs, interlocking hands, braids, and infinity symbols, among others. In 2017, she created a glossary, which she refers to as “the infinite,” that articulates definitions and contexts for these forms, ranging from personal association to social significance, especially as pertains to gender and the history of craft, and philosophical, even utopian, potential. Anna Katz sat down with Haft-Candell in her Glassell Park studio to discuss the ways in which she approaches ceramics as a container for ideas; the sometimes vexing trend towards “lumpiness”; and the place of art history in the infinite school, an alternative to institutional ceramics instruction that she founded in 2014.