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From the category archives:
Firing
Over the past six weeks I have been making a set of new work primarily for the the summer exhibition at The Garden Gallery in Broughton, Hampshire. Run by Rachel Bebb it is a beautiful English garden filled with sculpture from about sixty artists, both well-established and embarking on their careers. She is also curating an exhibition at The Discovery Center, Winchester in November entitled Figure in the Landscape. A mixed exhibition that explores artist that are inspired by landscape. The exhibition will feature works by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Chris Drury among others including myself which I am very excited about.
Firing the kiln is a right of passage, weeks of making culminating in a metamorphic process. Once all the work has been finished you are left with blanks onto which I have to choose which glazes to apply. Powdered rocks and minerals; Quartz, Dolomite, Copper, Iron and Feldspars all mixed in exact quantities. Ten hours of fire and heat turning powder into glass. A dull matt gray surface into a singing, shining blue. It is also a time to reflect on the what I have made and what will come next. I stoke the kiln hoping that every little process involved comes together to create something magical within the chamber. Tomorrow I will find out…
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Between the cliffs and the fields lies a stretch of common land, through which runs the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. Much of the land is now owned by the National Trust. This stretch of wilderness that can seem like a wild landscape of rock, sea and heath is in fact managed and maintained. One of ways this is done is by burning back the invasive gorse to allow for greater bio-diversity.
A major part of the ceramic process is fire, so for some time I have thought about placing a vessel in the path of one of these controlled fires. I suppose mainly I was curious about what affect it would have on the surface of the piece. I have to admit it also appealed to my boyish fascination with fire. Big fire, burn pot.
By placing my work here, it made me think about our understanding of landscape and nature. How what we perceive as natural and wild is often actually highly maintained. The human influence on the natural world is often overlooked in our aesthetic appreciation of a beautiful landscape.
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