Keith Simpson’s ceramics push traditional earthenware into unexpected territory, marrying disparate ideas, references, and techniques. Such creative synthesis is central to the ethos of Fort Makers, the Brooklyn-based collective that tapped Simpson for its first outside collaboration, a series of boldly hued abstract-patterned vessels. The cast pots are based on original forms that the ceramist, who lives in western New York, spins on a specialty plaster wheel. He views the shapes as human figures—broad-shouldered, slim-waisted, heavy-bottomed. After the vessels are painted with brushstrokes of wax resist, they are dipped in black, red, yellow, or cobalt glaze and then fired in a kiln, melting the wax to reveal whorls of negative white space amid glossy color. The finished pieces in the collection—cheekily dubbed Primary Resist—are at once classic and contemporary, lyrical…
