(Liquid Clown) 
Anonymous
Found 08/2007, Salvation Army (Formerly South Lamar near Oltorf)

In a rare display of truth in ceramics, (Liquid Clown) brings us face to face with the oily truth of buffoonery. The simple physical distortions of the clown are, in a sense, standard. Long and gangling clowns are common enough, awkwardness is a part of the clown’s DNA in the same way that face paint and oversized mouths and feet signify the species. Yet this one transcends the merely awkward and distorted, his body a collision of dark, wet colors that refuse to mix, patterns of paint on water. He is not merely strange, he has become oily.

Indeed, the glazes chosen by the anonymous ceramicist give this sad creature an almost gelid quality, layers of translucent paint render give his skin the faintly glowing quality of an undersea creature. Stranger still,a single note, murky and foul, oozes out of his trombone, splashing to the ground at his feet, as musical as a pool of tobacco spittle.

In the context of the profoundly unpleasant elements that comprise this poor creature,  his grin comes across as born of mania and illness, like the brief flair of unwell vigor at the end of a consumptive episode, rather than a sign of any sort of humor. His eyes, recessed into pools of glaze, mirror his dark fervor. There is not a fine line between clown and insanity. There is no line at all.