Date of Award

Spring 5-31-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Ceramics

First Advisor

Shoji Satake

Second Advisor

Tucker Houlihan

Third Advisor

Heather Bhandari

Abstract

The Arch and The Looking Glass: Umbli Cu Cioara Vopsită (You Are Walking Around with a Painted Crow)

A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics in the Department of Ceramics of the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island.

By Ana Popescu, 2025

Approved by Master’s Examination Committee:

Lesley Baker, Shoji Satake (Chair), Heather Bhandari, Tucker Houlihan

Date: May 17th, 2025

Location: Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island

To be opened for self-reflection in 10 years, on May 17th, 2035:

I’ve been mulling over how to make my thesis book authentic to myself—true to my work as it currently stands and reflective of the multifaceted, sometimes complicated person behind it. I considered a more academic approach to highlight the research-based influences in my work but realized quickly that it wouldn’t adequately capture the nuances or humor. It felt disjointed and formulaic. I then toyed with the idea of a “coffee table book”—polished and pristine, full of poetic excerpts and only the best images I had. That too didn’t feel like me.

What I need most in this moment—the final stretch of what has been one of the most intense and creative periods of my life—is a pause. A moment for reflection and appreciation. In this era of fast-paced digital over-consumption and algorithm-induced success, I find myself yearning for real connection, in-person conversation, and the presence to appreciate moments while they’re happening. To literally stop and smell the blooming flowers still clinging to the trees in my beautiful neighborhood in Providence.

This letter is an attempt to ground myself here and now, in this particularly special moment, and to serve as a gentle reminder if I ever find myself off course.

Before coming to RISD, I built a vibrant career in New York—first in underground nightlife, producing immersive events rooted in joy, movement, and community. Later, I moved into the agency world, managing large-scale experiences for major clients, creating inflatable wormholes and logistical spreadsheets with equal finesse. When the pandemic brought that world to a halt, I didn’t crumble—I rerouted. I returned to a rigorous studio practice and followed my intuition to flip my career, against most odds.

Rediscovering clay as my preferred medium brought a sense of grounding simplicity, while its scientific complexity was utterly enthralling. By exploring its many dualities—unforgiving yet flexible, fragile but long-lasting, an inherently ancient material where innovation and futurism still thrive—I had been inspired to immerse myself fully into it.

I realized my love for clay was deeply connected to how I process memory and experience. The tactile act of shaping earth by hand, the slow build-up of form, and the intuitive layering all became a direct transcription of memory, emotion, and self-image. Leaving New York for graduate school felt terrifyingly finite—especially for someone who dislikes change (read: lived in the same Clinton Hill apartment for 16 years). But I knew it was a necessary discomfort to provoke a true new beginning.

I hope you’ve continued to challenge yourself in that way. Never allowing fear or uncertainty to guide your most important decisions, rather jumping in head first. Easier said than done, I know.

It was a magnificent re-ignition. Detached from corporate rigmarole, and in the midst of global uncertainty, I looked towards nostalgia and keepsakes. My work began to take shape through compositions of objects, ideas, and processes that I found comforting and joyful. I re-learned to build emotion through layers of materials: a long, physical process that reveals its own imagery and allows my body to expose its subconscious.

My first works at RISD were encrusted ceramic panels formed from a plastic Home Depot bin lid—later turned into a plaster drape mold—then densely packed with ceramic components. These “components,” as I called them, included tiny press molds, painted slab flowers, broken ceramic fragments, and older works I carried with me from past studios and workshops. Each object held their own significance and meaning before being included. They lived in my memory bank individually, and together they spurred the idea—almost unconsciously—of calling my sculptures “time capsules.”

“As I work, I allow my pieces to morph into their final self, encapsulating each layer with my memories and locking them inside like a diary with a padlock and key. In this way, each piece develops its own personality as it evolves with me over time—imprinted with my psyche, vested with meaning, and transformed into time capsules of memory.” —Excerpt from artist statement, Fall 2023

So it’s only fitting that this thesis book—my final work here—takes the form of a time capsule.

If you’re reading this, it means some time has passed since the chaos and clarity of grad school. I hope you’ve had time to rest, to laugh, and to build something you’re proud of—whatever form that takes. I hope this letter transports you back to your sun-filled studio on the third floor of Metcalf, across from the “Cheapside” building sign. Room 305, like the Miami-Dade area code, which felt so serendipitous at the time.

Things have a way of falling into place in your life—that grand puzzle. And you’ve been committed to allowing the pieces to fall as they may, trusting the process, even through its most challenging moments.

“As long as I can remember, I have had a strong feeling of predestination. The very act of opening my eyes in the world made me feel like I was chosen … I understood I must use my brain like an eye, open and observant under the skull’s transparent shell, able to see with another kind of sight … to detect fissures and signs, hidden artifacts and obscure connections in this test of intelligence, patience, love, and faith that is this world … I have done nothing but search for breaches in the apparently flat, logical, fissureless surface of the model within my skull.” —Cărtărescu, Mircea. *Solenoid*, trans. Sean Cotter

My practice has evolved into something beautifully layered while here at RISD—blending handbuilt organic forms with technological processes like 3D ceramic printing, vacuum forming and CNC routing. Through surface and material, I’ve learned to tell stories: glazes and clays that shift under different firing atmospheres, in-glaze lustres that shimmer with imperfection, forms that reference Classical ruins and Baroque moldings—only to collapse them with humor, grit, and what I’ve called “SpongeBob energy.” I’ve pushed my material language in many directions, chasing texture, transformation, and emotional resonance.

The Arch and The Looking Glass: Umbli Cu Cioara Vopsită (You Are Walking Around with a Painted Crow) reflects the contrasts and contradictions that have shaped my life. As an immigrant from communist-era Romania raised in colorful, sunny Florida, I have often found myself torn between extremes. That tension—between past and present, brutalism and ornament, survival and comfort, fact and mythology—has always been part of my thinking.

The Arch references Roman imperial monuments—particularly those built by Trajan after his campaigns against the Dacians, my ancestors. By reimagining this monumental symbol of Roman power, I aim to dismantle its legacy of conquest and authority, challenging the colonial undertones embedded in such grand architectural forms.

Ornament becomes a site of inquiry: a symbol of power, illusion, and biased storytelling. Through the deconstruction of maximalist ornamentation, The Arch becomes a vessel for examining how history is framed and for offering a new visual language.

The back of the Arch is left exposed—a deliberate decision that quietly breaks the illusion. Like a stage set, it reveals the construction behind the spectacle, hinting at the uneasy truths often masked by displays of grandeur.

Passing through The Arch, viewers encounter The Looking Glass—a sculptural table composed of CNC-routed laminated hardwoods, ceramic forms, and paper pulp. At its center is a lustred ceramic ovoid, referencing alchemical symbols and inviting reflection on perception, illusion, and transformation.

Looking forward, I hope you still lead with curiosity. That you keep stretching what clay can do, how it can speak to your work. That you continue to build and nurture community wherever you are—whether in a shared studio, a teaching space, or a kiln yard rebuilt from the ground up.

You’ve always known that success isn’t measured by accolades alone, but by the relationships you form and the spaces you help create. Keep that close. Let it guide you. Keep making. Keep laughing. And don’t forget the power of transformation—within clay, and within yourself.

A tired yet hopeful grad student,

x

A. Pop

(Closing acknowledgments and bibliography omitted here for brevity, but can be included on request.)

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