The result
ceramics, my art :: posted on May 20th, 2009
It was a bit exciting at the pottery studio today when I picked up the completed tile piece I have been working on! The ochre glazes have worked their magic and despite some cracks that happened in the second firing I think the tiles are doing what I wanted them to do.
The cracks, as you can see in the tile above, really fit into the theme of the work, being about the difficulties of breaking through the complexities of traumatic experience.
The tiles have to be mounted now so that I can hang them on a wall, so hopefully they will hang together for that! I think they will as they are quite thick and strong despite their apparent faults. Which sort of brings into play that question of perfection – always a non issue for me as I don’t believe in the quest to seek a perceived ideal of perfection. It can be, after all, only one persons vision, or a socially defined expectation.
But of course there is a degree of expertise, which in the case of my tiles is not of the highest order! But it was a wonderful learning experience and I’m happy to have spent the time and effort doing it. What’s next is perhaps a good question for ceramics, and that will take some time to answer without the pressure of resolving a work for the MFA.
May 25th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Oh I agree, if perfection is saught too closely, beautiful accidents are not perceived as such and often discarded. And I’m glad these lovely tiles are not being overlooked.
May 26th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Thanks Jay! I’ll be taking the next step of mountng them in the next week, so hopefully all will go as planned and they will pull together ok. For me the use of the raw material – the ochres in the glaze – was the main challenge, and and to have a sense of the tiles being fragile yet strong in the cover of what may lie beneath, if that makes sense! I have been having a lot of trouble with the writing about this work in my paper – maybe I have fallen into the trap of seeking an ill conceived idea of perfection!
May 26th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
I think you’ve got a pretty good start to the writing component right there – just needs elaborating
and yes, it does make sense!
May 28th, 2009 at 5:31 am
Oh sounds like a copy paste is on the cards!