Pokagon Band citizen Jason Wesaw’s pottery is notable for colorful plumes of dyed deer tails.

Starting out, he used delicate sprays of indigo bunting feathers, but deer proved more durable.

“Deer tails have a way of softening pieces and draw people in,” he said. “You want to touch it to figure out what it is.”

“If you think of human forms, we look at each other on the outside, what we look like, but don’t necessarily know what’s on the inside. That deer tail is like a person’s spirit emanating from inside that vessel. Certain colors go with men and women, young and old, different times of the year. It’s more about the colors than it is the geometrics. I’m influenced by my elders’ stories as much as Barnett Newman,” an American artist who was a major figure in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost color field painters.

Wesaw’s art “embodies my effort to build a bridge between traditional tribal craft and contemporary art. I also work in fibers that are hung like tapestries or wrapped around structures. My fleeting, in-the-moment personality lends itself to wanting to do different things. I desire to make something with my hands, but I don’t think I could do just clay.”

“Our people always ornament things, such as clothing we wear for ceremonial dancing, with animals or shells and things from nature,” Wesaw said.

Wesaw, 40, of Dowagiac, studied with Sherrie Styx at Southwestern Michigan College and at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts and Western Michigan University with Paul Flickenger, another of 12 Ceramics Invitational artists exhibiting in the gallery in room 108 of the Dale A. Lyons Building on the Dowagiac campus through Feb. 5.

The exhibit is open to the public at no cost Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

On Jan. 1, 1994, Wesaw founded Condition Studio in Kalamazoo.

Wesaw, who attended Mattawan High School, grew up in the Potawatomi culture.

“I still spend a lot of time with our elders and raise my kids with our teachings and language,” Wesaw said. “My work is based a lot upon spirit and the traditional stories of my people that are generally passed down orally, one on one. My pieces are kind of pared-down reinterpretations of those old stories using colors and metaphor. I have an appreciation for functional ceramics, but my stuff is more decorative.”

His three pieces in the Ceramics Invitational span eight years.

When he pit fires, he uses cedar shavings from his woodworking grandfather.

“The taller piece started on the wheel, then was hand-built, just came from the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City,” Wesaw said. “It’s traveled all over the United States and Canada. It’s been seen a lot, so I wanted it to be seen locally, too.”

After the public reception Jan. 14, Wesaw demonstrated pottery wheel and glazing techniques for three dozen people in the SMC ceramics studio while turning out smudge bowls inspired by Oriental tea pots.

Students are impressed at how nimbly he wedges five pounds of clay, kneading his “dough” like a pizza maker with double-jointed fingers.

“The wheel’s just a tool,” he said. “It takes a long time to not let it dictate what your work’s going to look like. Clay really shows the marks of the human hand and that there was a maker. Repetition is most important. Keep throwing pots, whether they’re perfect or wobbly. As a beginner, don’t be afraid to throw 15 pieces instead of three. Your three best will be really nice.”

“I started in photography right out of high school, did a little bit in film and played music before that,” he said. “Then I got bit by the clay bug. I’ve been working in clay for 12 years. It’s been a way for me to harvest clay from rivers, lake beds and backyards and turn lumps just sitting there into work like this. Clay has worked out the best of all worlds. There’s so much you can do with the medium to put life into a simple vessel.”

When terrorists toppled the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, Wesaw was in the Kalamazoo Valley Community College ceramics studio.

“I took classes here at Southwestern and at Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, KVCC and Western. I’ve done workshops all over the country. Just recently, in the last five or six years, I started firing the wood kiln with Bill Kremer,” of Cassopolis, chairman of the Ceramics Department at the University of Notre Dame.

“The sky’s the limit taking classes here,” he said. “Sherrie has a syllabus of projects you have to complete, but whatever you want to do, she’ll let you.”