The early morning quiet of the studio. The long day of productivity stretched before me, and what am I doing? Wasting my time online : ) Sigh, habits die hard. I think for someone who is used to working in a panic state, in small 20 minute bursts, the thought of hours, days, weeks to work is a bit overwhelming. But i’ll deal don’t you worry! It’s so exciting to be here (have I said that enough times yet?) Yesturday I dug my hands in and got muddy, nothing to write home about, just some pots to get me started. I’m eager to work with Robin Dupont while he’s here and suck some soda firing expertise out of him. So I figured making some work for the soda kiln was as good as any other way to start.
As usual I think I’m spending too much time thinking about my pots. It’s a left over from grad school days when everything had to be justified theoretically and conceptually. It has left me with the inability to accept that sometimes a pot is just a pot, a vessel, a beautiful functional container.
If you have any sense of my past work in functional ware (see some pics and an artist statement here) you’ll know of my interest in the relationship between industrially made ceramics and handmade ones and what are the signifiers/stereotypes of either. Medalta is a perfect place to be back thinking about these things being that the studio is just steps away from the old production factory/museum and a functioning production space. We had a quick but awesome tour yesturday and as Aaron mentioned we have to remember that even “industrially” made ceramics are made by hand, there are individual people in the process, it’s just a different process. So that lead me to wonder more about why/how we have this separation between small market mass production/mass industrial production/and small scale artist production. Maybe it really just boiled down to a question of aesthetics once all of the process/technology was removed. But why then have the two sides (artist vs industry) positioned themselves at such opposing sides of the spectrum. The industry side wants to generalize their audience, create the object that will have the largest commercial appeal where as the artist wants to have a singular voice, a unique vision – but wait – they want the largest commercial appeal too!
Hmmm. Commercial appeal. Unique vision. I want both, can I have both? Which has to be more compromised to realize the other?
In terms of process right now I’m working with both thrown vessels and slab construction. The thrown pieces are attempting to be loose works, speaking to their process on the wheel. The slab built are constructed using store bought objects, cheap bowls and plates, mass produced and intended to have the largest market appeal. I’m trying to use those pieces as a base upon which to overlay a unique vision, find an individual voice and highlight handmade stereotypes of ceramic production.
At the same time i’m also using commercial stamps. This a hard one for me. I’m so compelled and put off by them at the same time for similar and different reasons. I think it’s a crossover from my sculptural work to combine a bit of kitschy contemporary visual language. It’s cutsy (yum and yuck). But how to subvert a mass produced commercial stamp to produce a unique personal vision? It’s the same dilemma as using the cheap bowls and plates.
Who knows maybe it only makes mild sense in my mind. Maybe something will come out of it all, or maybe i’ll just have some nice dinnerware to take home and use.
Well anyway, that’s enough for now. Maybe some pictures later.
In the meantime if you want a different look into the residency I encourage you to check out Robin Lambert’s blog Tiny Revolutions. He’s promised to post everyday as well so we’ll see which one of us lives up to our promises!
