For every picture of finished ceramic, resting in perfect light, there are hundreds more taken while some piece was struggling to come to life. The images speak to some other kind of thing—unknown as yet, a shape that’s unresolved and hard to understand, on the brink of losing the battle against gravity. I’m weeks into slowly coaxing this vessel into being, it’s a bit like nursing an invalid: I have to keep checking to see when I can work again, based on the clay regaining strength, sharing in a process of building and re-building.
Pieces like this make me feel like I’m completely on the edge as I’m making:
The method is high risk.
The material is working to explain the concept.
I have to use materials intuitively based on the look I want to achieve, usually not sticking to what the manufacturer recommends as the best use.
I don’t know precisely what the look will be when I get to “finished”, I’m working some details out on the fly, based on what the materials say I can do.
For most of the process, I only have a partial sense that the piece could be successfully brought to “done”.
Maybe that’s all part of the attraction?
#WIP #Process isn't always pretty: one of the sculptural ceramics hiding under a heap of plastic in the last post. Full discussion in the ALT text.
#ceramics #art #sculpture #artist #artistatwork #artinprogress #Artworkflow #artiststudio #hands #clay #Creativeprocess #pottersofbluesky