Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
James Aarons in air and Jesse Traschen
Woman Window Square,
1 9 9 0
A l t h o u g h
A a r o n s
h a s
t r a d e d
d a n c e
f o r
c e r a m i c s ,
h e
still
s e e k s
a
p e r f o r m i n g
f i x ,
w h i c h
h e
g e t s
a t c r a f t s h o w s .
"I
l o v e
t h e
t h e a t r i c a l i t y
o f
it,"
h e
s a y s .
"I
b u i l d
w a l l s ,
I
p u t
u p
m y w o r k ,
I
s t a n d
t h e r e
in
m y c l e a n
c l o t h e s .
It's
a
p e r f o r m a n c e . "
and what the product is,
appealed to me."
Aarons gravitated toward
modern dance; its physical
energy and abstract nature
were perfect for a young
man w ho had always
admired the work of abstract
expressionists like Mark
Rothko and Jackson Pollock.
"Modern dance is that same
kind of thing, where it can
be evocative of ideas, rather
than pure storytelling," he says.
After graduating, Aarons moved to N e w
York and worked with several notable
dance companies, including Nikolais Dance
Theatre and Erick Hawkins Dance company.
He toured nationally and internationally with
both and performed with other N e w York
choreographers before moving to California
in
1 9 8 9
to work with choreographer
Margaret Jenkins. By the early '
9 0
s he
decided it w as time to move on, but not
wanting to return to N e w York, he took some
time off to decide what to do next in terms of
his dance career.
In the meantime, he needed to make a
living. That's when his background in pottery
cam e in handy. He threw together a line
of dishes called Square Plates that were an
instant hit.
"And because I
didn't know any better," he
says, "I just jumped into the gift-show circuit
in San Francisco. I
kept my eyes open and
watched what people did, and I
learned
how to sell things. And it gradually evolved
into the series of art pieces that I
make now."
Having started his ceramics career making
tableware, Aarons now adays makes
primarily non-functional pieces. This is partly
a realistic business decision - the larger
installations fetch more money than cups and
bowls - and partly a function of his need for
creative growth.
A current project is a ceramic mural m ade
of a series of circular forms for a corporate
space in Philadelphia. He enjoys working
with these flat, colorful "dot" compositions
because they're infinitely flexible in size,
color, and arrangement. His clients like that
they're one-of-a-kind pieces that are easily
m ade site-specific. Last year, he created four
enormous
7
-by-
3 0
foot dot compositions for
N e w York Presbyterian Hospital.
Aarons still has a dancer's discipline, which
benefits his ceramics
career. Each day he gets
up before
6
a.m. for his
part-time job as a baker at
a nearby café. "Food and
clay, they're the same thing,
essentially," he says.
His studio is in his home;
he works about
1 0
hours a
day during the week, a bit
less on weekends. A couple
of years a g o he invested
in a solar-panel system,
of which he's enormously
proud. It powers
9 0
percent of his studio,
including his two electric kilns.
"Even on cloudy days my meter spins
backwards," he says.
"And I
make a lot of
work. I
crank out ceramic objects. I
love my
panels. I
look at them every day, glistening
up there, and it just blows my mind."
Although Aarons has traded dance for
ceramics, he still seeks a performing ;ix,
which he gets at craft shows. "I love the
theatricality of it," he says.
"I build walls, I
put up my work, I
stand there in my clean
clothes. Its a performance."
And he loves craft shows for providing him
the community he had in the dance world.
"These are people w ho are my family. I
love seeing what they do, and the am azing
facility that people have to take raw
materials and change them into something
extraordinary. And I
feel very, very lucky to
be among these people."
