{"id":3053,"date":"2025-04-03T12:36:28","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T12:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/03\/observer-arts-interviews-ceramics-artist-anina-major\/"},"modified":"2025-04-03T12:36:29","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T12:36:29","slug":"observer-arts-interviews-ceramics-artist-anina-major","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/03\/observer-arts-interviews-ceramics-artist-anina-major\/","title":{"rendered":"Observer Arts Interviews: Ceramics Artist Anina Major"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ceramicist Anina Major with work ready to be fired. Courtesy the artist<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a kid growing up in the Bahamas, Anina Major<\/a> watched from under the dining room table as her grandmother\u2019s feet stepped on the sewing machine pedal, connecting woven plait strips. Other women visited to learn about weaving from Major\u2019s grandmother. \u201cEven though she might not have been transferring that knowledge to me directly, I was still indirectly receiving it,\u201d Major told Observer.<\/p>\n

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Today, Major preserves that history and her family lineage by taking inspiration from the objects her grandmother made and sold at the straw market. Her striking ceramic works use the same techniques her grandmother taught: her woven sculptures are made from strips of clay plaited as if they were straw. These works are dichotomous, both intricate and delicate yet durable and seemingly pliable, and her practice is similar in that it has its roots in nostalgia while pushing an art form into the future.<\/p>\n

Not long ago, high-end contemporary design gallery The Future Perfect selected Major as the inaugural recipient of The Future Perfect Prize, which comes with $20,000 of unrestricted funding, professional development and mentorship and an exhibition at The Future Perfect\u2019s New York City location. Major sees it as not just a win for her but for the artists and artisans who preceded her. \u201cI didn\u2019t really come up with this on my own; it\u2019s a series of people and a community,\u201d she said, adding that the honor is \u201csaying to the community that you\u2019re seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Major\u2019s journey with ceramic weaving began unexpectedly when a friend invited her to a community pottery class. Working with clay brought a sense of comfort\u2014at first, a hobby, then a calling. What started as casual curiosity soon deepened into a committed pursuit: she enrolled in the ceramics MFA program at the Rhode Island School of Design to better understand what kind of maker she wanted to become. That exploration led her back to her grandmother and to the summers she spent watching her craft souvenirs, baskets, hats, dolls and bags for the Bahamian tourist market. \u201cThat\u2019s how I understood how something becomes three-dimensional,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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Anina Major, Kindred<\/em> (detail). Courtesy the artist<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At R.I.S.D., Major devoted herself to the challenge of learning how to weave with clay. As she retaught herself the mechanics of weaving, she also revisited the tactile memories of watching her grandmother work\u2014memories that lingered long after her grandmother\u2019s passing when Major was just 13. Translating the flexibility of straw into the rigidity of clay required relentless experimentation. She spent several years studying the material\u2019s chemical properties, seeking a way for clay to move with the pliability of palm. She began by rolling slabs into thin strips, mirroring the technique Bahamian women use to harvest and prepare palm. Once she succeeded in creating two-dimensional woven surfaces, she kept pushing, determined to bring the work into three dimensions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I could have ended there, but I was really pushing for something that could hold that occupied space; it just wasn\u2019t enough,\u201d Major said. She initially experimented with molds that mimicked the appearance of woven forms, but they felt insufficient\u2014mere illusions that failed to honor the labor and precision of the women in the Bahamas who plait by hand. Determined to capture the authenticity of the process, she kept refining her technique, drawing unexpected inspiration from beach balls, monuments and the imagery found on Bahamian postcards. As her ceramic sculptures began to take shape and hold their own structure, she arrived at what she calls a \u201cpeekaboo\u201d\u2014vessels with intentional openings that expose the actual weave, making clear that what appears woven truly is. There\u2019s no trickery, no facsimile\u2014only the evidence of her hand. \u201cA big part of my practice is about dispelling some of these illusions of being from the Caribbean\u2014these illusions of fabricating some kind of image. I want to get more down into the grit.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Anina Major, Hermit Armor<\/em>. Courtesy the artist<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, Major\u2019s creative practice is grounded in a deep commitment to preserving Bahamian culture and the artisanal traditions it spawned. In a country where tourism drives 50 percent of the gross domestic product, her grandmother wove and sold crafts at local markets to help fund her daughters\u2019 education so they could build a new future. As Major tried to understand her ancestry through the act of weaving, she found herself reckoning with the layered meanings of these handmade objects\u2014charming to visitors but complex for those who make them. The very artifacts that helped shape her identity were also bound up in the realities of the service economy, making it impossible to separate cultural preservation from economic context.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like my ability to adopt that practice and take it to other dimensions within my creative career speaks to the impact that it could make,\u201d Major said. \u201cIt\u2019s weaving great symbolism when we talk about resourcefulness and resilience.\u201d She sees her current series of ceramic sculptures as just the beginning\u2014an evolving practice through which she continues to explore, question and understand her own story. \u201cAnina is really tapping into the spirit and essence of who she is as a person through her work,\u201d The Future Perfect founder David Alhadeff<\/a> told Observer.<\/p>\n

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Anina Major, Regal<\/em>. Courtesy the artist<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looking ahead, Major wants to explore woven sculpture as a form of performance, treating the act of making as a dance\u2014a physical, intuitive process that can be another form of ancestral excavation. Once, she said, there were more than sixty distinct weaving styles in the Bahamas; today, only a few remain. \u201cThe making of this work is, in so many ways, a beautiful way of processing loss. Not just a loss of a person but also the evolution of an identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weaving, as traditionally practiced, is often an ephemeral form\u2014straw and palm decompose, leaving little behind. By translating those materials into clay, Major gives permanence to an impermanent craft, preserving its intricacies in a medium that endures. Her grandmother never called herself an artist, but to Major, she unquestionably was. \u201cIt\u2019s beautiful to think about how I can recontextualize the work of these women and add another layer of understanding: it is a work of art,\u201d Major concluded.<\/p>\n

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