Sculpting A Way of Life - Behind the Niche with Jackson Shaner

Communication through the physical human body is a language of its own. The eyes can reflect emotions that aren’t said out loud. Our mouths not only bring our learned language to life, but carve genuine expression. Our legs cross, bend, and point when depending on how close we are with someone. Every part of the human body can communicate and express a story. For Jackson Shaner, his hands sculpt the emotions he wishes to share.

Charles Townes Center

Every artist starts somewhere. For Jackson Shaner, that somewhere was the Charles Townes Center in South Carolina, where, in the fourth grade, he first discovered the magic of clay. Like a cat to yarn, he was instantly drawn in. That passion only grew stronger as he moved into high school, where access to more materials deepened his love for ceramics.

But as is often the case for those pulled toward creative paths, Shaner found himself caught in what I like to call the artist’s dilemma: How do you pursue a creative life without sacrificing your ability to make a living? At the same time, he wrestled with an equally pressing concern—the idea of art as commodity.

“I also didn't want my livelihood to depend on selling my work because I thought it would illegitimize the importance of the work,” Shaner said. “To commodify it would be to strip it of its truth… And I still struggle with this today.”

Early on, Shaner took a detour. Rather than heading straight for the studio, he immersed himself in the sciences—biology and psychology—searching, perhaps, for another kind of understanding. But no matter how promising those paths seemed on paper, they never resonated quite as deeply. It was in the quiet moments, surrounded by the smell of clay and the mess of creation, that he felt most grounded. Shaner’s journey back to art wasn’t a rejection of logic or science, but a return to something more instinctive—something that didn’t need to be explained to be felt. In clay, he found a language he didn’t have to translate. It was visceral. Immediate. Honest. And in choosing to pursue it fully, Shaner stepped into an artistic practice defined not by commercial goals, but by curiosity, vulnerability, and a deep respect for the material that first held his attention all those years ago.

The Human Emotions

At the core of Jackson Shaner’s sculptures lies something deeply human: emotion—not as an abstract theme, but as lived experience. His work isn’t an attempt to capture every feeling; rather, it’s a dialogue with his own, sculpted in real time.

 “Many of the emotions I incorporate I am dealing with around the time I create a corresponding sculpture,” Shaner shares. “Sometimes a piece relates to a specific emotional event in my past, and sometimes my work reflects persistent experiences—general queer anxiety, a feeling of un-safeness, insecurity in my own skin, the tightness in my chest when trying not to cry...”

Shaner doesn’t shy away from discomfort. Instead, he leans into it—fear, grief, desire, hollowness—and transforms those inner states into tangible forms. In clay, he finds a therapeutic outlet, a way to understand the hidden corners of his identity. It becomes a quiet act of rebellion against societal pressure to mask vulnerability. 

Where social anxiety once encouraged him to present a polished version of himself to the world, his work offers an alternative: “I can just be vulnerable in my studio, and then share the products of that creative process.”

Beyond personal catharsis, Shaner is fascinated by how emotions heighten our perception of the world. Fear, joy, grief—these intensifiers leave impressions that linger long after the moment has passed. This concept threads through his sculptures, where even subtle poses or nuanced color choices evoke powerful, sometimes conflicting, feelings.

But Shaner’s exploration doesn’t end with the emotional. He is equally captivated by the physical: the human body. To him, the body is both a vessel and a contradiction—capable of immense power and pleasure, but also bound by fragility, decay, and temporality. “Bodies have the versatile capabilities to seduce, attract, and disgust,” he notes. Lately, this tension has led his work toward what he describes as bordering on art horror. It's not gore for shock’s sake, but a careful pairing of the beautiful with the uncanny—sculptures that are at once alluring and unsettling, inviting viewers to sit with their discomfort and ask why.

The Mold

For Shaner, there’s no one-size-fits-all method when it comes to his creative process.

"It changes depending on the project," he explains. "Some start on the wheel, some with coil building, slabs, pinch-pots, or even just a solid lump of clay."

Rather than committing to one routine, Shaner stays adaptable. "I think getting too tied up with a particular process can be limiting… I try to approach each idea open-mindedly.”

Sometimes he begins with a precise vision—"just executive labor" at that point—while other times, it's a more intuitive journey. “I bring it to life with playful decision-making along the way,” he adds.

That flexibility is echoed in his environment. Shaner currently works out of a spacious studio at the University of South Carolina. Access to large kilns and ample space has given him the freedom to think—and build—big. “It’s an incredible privilege,” he says. “They afford me the opportunity to imagine big and work large.”

Surrounded by past works and charcoal drawings pinned to the walls, his studio doubles as both a retrospective gallery and a springboard for new ideas. One haunting drawing, a ghostly self-portrait created with an upward swipe of charcoal, directly inspired his “sublimate” sculptures. “The face seemed to flow into a smoky spirit,” he recalls, a visual that now manifests in his ceramic heads dissolving into ethereal forms.

The Weight of Clay

If his process is grounded in play and experimentation, the emotional core of Shaner’s work runs much deeper. For him, art isn’t just a hobby—it’s vital. “I have to create. I feel incredibly unproductive and hollow when I don’t have an outlet for expression.” His sculptures become vessels for memory and emotion, lasting testaments to fleeting experiences. "It makes me feel seen to take a potentially fleeting experience and concretize that into a permanent object."

But the emotional labor of making art isn’t always easy. “It can be exhausting to constantly externalize the internal,” he says. Particularly in academic settings, the pressure to justify deeply personal work can feel more performative than productive. Still, he believes it’s worth it. “It does more good than harm, though, to use my emotions to fuel creativity.”

Of course, ceramics bring their own set of practical challenges. From gravity and drying times to the sheer manual labor involved, Shaner admits, “Ceramics is a fickle field.” Among all the technical hurdles, patience is perhaps the greatest. “It’s easy to get in a groove and want to keep building, but you have to wait. Otherwise, it collapses.”

He laughs when asked to explain techniques like hollowing or rejoining forms. “It’s more helpful to show these technical things than to write them out,” he says. Still, behind every process, every carefully constructed form, is a driving emotional impulse. “There is a part of myself in every piece I create,” he says. “Whether it’s fear, anger, anxiety, shame, desire, joy… I want those felt concepts to pass directly into the work through touch.

Student vs Teacher

That emotional transparency carries over into Shaner’s thoughts on growth and mentorship. His journey—from Furman University to his MFA program at the University of South Carolina—has been shaped as much by lived experience as by formal education. “Life experiences shape your views,” he emphasizes. “Not everything can be learned in a classroom.”

One important lesson? Maintain a healthy skepticism of authority. “If you put unchecked faith in one teacher, and you disagree with them on something, then it’s easy to take their word as law and sacrifice your own viewpoint,” he says. “I want to forever be a student of many teachers… that way I can synthesize different viewpoints and figure out where I stand.”

Ironically, becoming a teacher himself has only deepened that philosophy. Though his teaching load is light—one class at UofSC and another at Benedict College—Shaner finds the role deeply meaningful. “Teaching forces me to understand material more clearly,” he says. “It’s one thing to do something. It’s another to explain it, justify it, and help others improve.”

Beyond the technical, it’s the human impact that sticks with him. “I often wonder, ‘How am I really doing any good, making an object alone in my studio that looks cool?’ But when I help a student manifest an idea they didn’t think possible… that’s magic.”

The Future of Clay:

Looking ahead, Shaner is thoughtful—both about his own future and the evolving landscape of ceramics as a medium. He’s candid about his ambivalence toward certain technologies. “I tend to stay away from hyper-technologized processes like 3D printing,” he says. “I want as much as possible to be done by hand. Human involvement is something I don’t ever want to strip away.”

That said, he’s not anti-tech. Tools like electric kilns, Photoshop, and airbrushes serve his craft, and he embraces them when they support rather than replace the hand-made. “It’s paradoxical, I know,” he admits, “but there’s a part of myself in every piece I create.”

His optimism shines when he talks about ceramics’ increasing accessibility.

“Community studios are on the rise, and I think that’s incredibly exciting,” he says. “Ceramics is healing. It forces you to slow down. And when your hands are covered in clay, you don’t want to touch your phone.”

As for his own path? He’s letting it evolve naturally. “I’ve found a love for ambiguating the figure… but who knows? I’ve got ideas for my thesis show, but I’m not quite ready to share those yet.”

Final Message: You not them.

Art has a way of finding you—and once it does, it’s nearly impossible to forget. It lingers in your thoughts, settles in your hands, and asks you to listen more closely to yourself. 

In a world that often measures worth in speed, output, or profit, choosing to make art is a quiet act of defiance. It’s also an act of faith. Shaner knows this well. His work reminds us that expression is a form of survival, and that the time we spend shaping, molding, and remaking ourselves through our craft is never wasted.

To those just starting out, he offers this: “Be patient with yourself. Don’t compare your work to others. Compare it to your own work. As long as you’re improving, you’re succeeding.” Growth in art is rarely loud—it’s often slow and sacred. But it's there, steady as breath, waiting to be noticed.

Because at the end of the day, art doesn’t ask for perfection—it only asks for honesty. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about it, it’s that once someone finds it, it becomes impossible to ignore. It becomes a part of who you are.

xoxo, Anisha Dwarka, Social Media Manager