This week has been another busy one, with lots of time at the Tate or Newlyn Art Gallery working and volunteering. The most notable things to happen this week in terms of my practice were the group crit I had on Thursday, as well as being able to pick up my fired ceramics on Monday.
As expected, not all of my ceramics survived the firing process, mainly due to how fragile I had made the clay sections – as the clay shrank around the found fragments, I imagine cracks formed and caused some of the pieces to fall apart. However, several did survive and, more excitingly, there was some small movement within the glass sections – it began to ooze and run a little. The pieces of found ceramic (as expected) did not seem to change at all.
The next step is to work out what to do in terms of glazing etc. I did initially feel they would need glazing to make the sculptures seem a little more final, and also to introduce another alchemic element as I know glaze can really change through firing. However, I did exhibit the unfired sculptures for my crit this week and actually by the end the unfired clay had grown on me; the sculptures were able to nicely blend in with the gathered objects I had curated them alongside, and if they had a shiny glaze on them I am concerned they would stick out as more consciously sculpted/created. As such, I think I might buy a small selection of glazes, including some matt ones, and re-assess once I’ve seen the outcomes – this first batch of sculptures is exactly for this kind of experimentation after all.
For my next batch of ceramic sculptures I would therefore like to more intentionally explore the glass melting. Karl informed me that I can make small clay bases for the sculptures that would catch any melting glass, rather than having to ensure all the glass is caught by the sculpture itself so I may try and use that approach. I have also been considering how I can make sculptures with the clay alone more alchemic – I’m not sure if having static lumps of ceramic within my sculptures is quite capturing the movement I’m after so I may try and move away from this. As mentioned last week, inspired in part by the work of Luke Fuller, I am therefore going to try a series of sculptures made around a paper framework. The paper will burn away in the kiln, leaving hollows and possibly even collapsing the sculpture, meaning the firing process will have some agency over the outcome of the piece. I also like the link this may create to my paper sculptures – having small material links like this is a nice way of being able to tie together slightly separate strands of my practice. It could also be interesting to consider the links between paper and clay more intentionally – they both have material similarities in the way that they retain traces of their manipulation (something I could really lean into when making?).
For the crit this week I really wanted to start exploring the curational side of things. This was partially with one eye on the degree show, but also partly because I tend to make a lot of small, material experiments and I think allowing myself time and space to intentionally curate them is something I need to do more of. It was really helpful to clear my studio space a little, creating a blank space to see how different objects sit alongside one another. The resulting arrangement had my sculptures and drawings arranged on par with found objects, and I also (as mentioned last week) brought text into the assemblage too.
I was initially worried that the quotes might be too literal but throughout the (silent) crit I began to see them as useful tools to give people a way in to what I’m exploring. In particular there was a quote from Bill Brown’s Thing Theory which speaks about a window, and which I had also positioned on a window, and rather than being read as too literal this seemed an effective, almost humourous, probing of the subject matter. (There could also be a nice link between the emphasis on the window and the use of glass in the ceramic sculptures?). I also chose to soak the quotes in water, in much the same way as I had with my drawings, which raised the quotes to sculptural objects in themselves. I would like to continue to keep an eye out for good quotes to use, or perhaps even write something myself (potentially moving away from overly ‘academic’ writing?), as this was definitely a successful addition to the display of my work. There was also one quote which I slightly hid, and there was a pleasing sense of revelation when it was later found – in ways this links to Mark Dion‘s idea of ‘making work to reward careful viewers’.
Displaying work on the window provoked some discussions around whether or not it provided an invitation to look out of the window, or to look at the window itself. This was not something I had considered prior to the crit but, especially alongside the quote, seemed to tie in nicely with the work itself. It was also highlighted that with the work being on the window, a certain amount of authorship is granted to the sun, wind, trees outside etc as they all have an effect on how the work is viewed – another successful element of the way the work was displayed.
It was noted that the paper that was sculpted in such a way as to be growing off the window was more successfully un-limited than the slightly crinkled A4/A3 drawings which still felt confined by the edges of the paper. Although personally I quite liked these latter drawings, I will this next week try and experiment more with pushing them to grow off the window, particularly with the open studio event in mind.
On the table I experimented with two different modes of curation. On one side I made a pile of found objects and material experiments – an assemblage that nods to Bennett‘s material provocation (‘Glove, pollen, rat, cap, stick.’). On the other, things were slightly more separate – almost a taxonomic display. I found that by bringing my sculpted pieces into direct conversation with the found pieces there was a confusing of visual language that was intriguing; it became unclear what was intentionally formed by artistic intention, and what was formed by the unpredictable agency of water, tides, erosion etc. I thought perhaps this confusion would be more successful in the piled assemblage – that the bombardment of forms would heighten the sense of agentic obfuscation – when in reality the feedback I received was that the more minimal display was more successful as it allows the viewer more time to carefully observe and consider each object. I was also therefore recommended the work of Mark Dion to research, which I have done, but would like to research a little more critically in future.
I also found placing the water-warped drawing on the table, alongside sculptures and objects, was an effective move towards blurring of the boundaries of what is sculptural (3D) and what is drawing (2D).
In all, I found that using my collection of found objects in the curation of the work, rather than necessarily involving them directly into the making of the sculptures themselves, is potentially more successful at invoking the idea of a ‘vital materiality’. I do need to bear in mind that making assemblages and sticking explanatory quotes up alongside the work may veer a little towards illustrating the concept, as opposed to critically engaging with it, but for now I am finding this to be a successful avenue of exploration.
This week, then, I would like to make some more ceramic pieces (with paper and glass), as well as exploring the drawings growing off the wall. I hope to get this latter one done in time for the open studio, and potentially re-curate my space taking into consideration the feedback I have received this past week. I will also continue to keep an eye out for more text that could be introduced to the work.
Anna Harris 