The Latch Key’s Whitney Sharpe transmutes clay into powerful ritual objects.
Whitney Sharpe’s stoneware vessels strike an imposing figure. Her vases, dimpled with fingerprints and gritty in texture, are bedecked with heavy ceramic chains, which can be used to hang the vessel or as decoration. When lit, her tiered sculptural candelabras cast intriguing shadows across a room. The Oakland, California–based ceramist, who has been working under the name the Latch Key Ceramics since 2014, has been drawn to objects her whole life. “My earliest memories are of investigating objects: tapered candles and their holders, lace doilies, antique porcelain dolls, an oil painting of two girls lounging in Victorian dress, and the house my father built,” says Sharpe. In 2017, she cofounded Standard Parts Studios, an interdisciplinary community studio in Oakland, where she makes all her work. Shivaun Watchorn wrote about her lace candelabra, made with ritual in mind, in “Light My Fire” in the Spring 2024 issue of American Craft.

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How do you describe your work or practice in 50 words or less?
My practice is a 3D meditation on my experience. Transmutation is what I strive for, imbuing the joys and sorrows of life into clay as an opportunity for metamorphosis. My art practice is my spiritual practice, offering a place of exploration and remembrance. Clay is my medicine and greatest collaborator.

Your work is often quite large. What are the material challenges of this? How do you create large, delicate work that holds up to the kiln?
The challenges of the material are navigated by observation and offering autonomy to the clay. The material communicates what it wants if you are observant to its needs. My process is both methodical and intuitive. A slow dry always helps, but cracks happen. Ceramics is the art of impermanence.

Chains are a common motif in your sculptures. Why chains?
It is symbolism: A singular link is a circle with no beginning or end. When interconnected, it shifts from individual to collective. Chains bind and connect us. A chain connecting to itself is a question: Is there space within the boundaries we’ve designed for ourselves? Chains represent both the fluidity and static nature of being.

Do you consider light and shadows when creating candelabras? How does this influence your work?
Composition is paramount to light and shadow; I work mostly with the silhouette, attempting dynamism and balance. My ideation process starts with sketching, sampling, and intuitive design shifts. This process is in part informed by my education with SCAD Fibers. Any shadows and play of light are an added bonus!

If you could have work from any contemporary craft artist in your home or studio, whose would it be and why?
To live in a home sculpted by Valentine Schlegel would be the ultimate. She is a huge inspiration with the many disciplines she explored and the bravery she exemplified as a creative woman in a time unkind to such individuality.

Which craft artists, exhibitions, or projects do you think the world should know about, and why?
NIAD and Creative Growth empower people with disabilities to express themselves through art rather than traditional education. Giving a voice to those that we as a society have ignored is hugely impactful. Their work is brilliant and I’m glad there is a place to foster their creativity.