During my making process I have started to work more with a more graphic style, from working with line to now exploring photography. I really like the way the above image captures the folds within the ceramic. My work has taken a turn into colour and how I can convey it to others.
How I display my work has become the main thought at the moment, do I attach them onto walls, stick them on plinths, have them piled on the floor? All of these ways of displaying are interesting but does it work with my work?
Where does this work live, and is what I want to communicate fully shown in this setting?
I don’t think it is, I have started to explore the natural colour of a material, and the concrete does nothing to highlight colour, if anything it just absorbed it all out. So, where can I display this? I think a wall piece could work, but I have to explore interior more and deeper as I continue to make.
When taking my work down to the kiln I piled them all out on a whiteboard for easy travel. I really like the way they all pile and spill over each other which gets me thinking about where else my work can live.
I have explored my work living in a domestic setting, but now i’m starting to think what about a wall piece/ panel? Working with ceramic has really opened the way I am thinking about the domestic, and I think my contemporary take on ceramics will work really well within the domestic setting.
To Do:
I really like the direction my work has started to move into, the mixing of hand made ceramics and the use of digital technology to bring forward my ideas. But, what can I do with these colours? I have been thinking about design and exploring the interior. I was thinking about creating a design colour book for client, they could look through the different colours and select their own custom colour from the book, or, I could create a new colour for them that fits their needs.
I really want to step into interior design, and this is a good way of getting my work in one place and accessible for clients.
What is about subtly that informs my practice? Day to day I find myself looking at the world around me and I can see the colours hidden in plain sight. I spend a lot of my time on my own, in deep reflection and so I start to see the hidden world around us.
In my work with porcelain I have been looking into the subtle colours within the material when it is bisque fired, but that’s not the only place I see these hues. In the below image of my hand you can see the fine lines and details of my palm, but you can also see the subtle changing of colour and hue within my skin. The light and dark of highlights and shadows. This image really helps to apply context within my work, its a way of showing the viewer what I see.
Showing the viewer is one thing, but I have started to make even deeper connections to myself and the materials I use. When working in porcelain everything is pinch formed by hand, and now my hand is now reflecting the subtitles I wish to expose. There is always an ongoing conversation within my work, and its how I bring others into this conversation that will begin to open my work up further.
Is my work all show and now tell, or a mix of the two? How much am I willing to allow the viewer to gain without my prompting.
Working with porcelain I can really see the colours that are within the material, but how do I get others to see what I see? I have a background in graphic design before I started this university course, so I have been working more and more with Photoshop and graphic applications.
Taking one of my images into Photoshop I am able to pull out the colours and the codes that make up the colour, (as shown at the bottom of the above image) and then arrange them into palettes.
I really like working in this more graphic style, and it has got me thinking into how I can display and show this way of working. One of the main requirements for this year is a book, so I think as well as my artist book I might create a graphic print book detailing the colours I see within porcelain.
A different arrangement on my mantelpiece.Â
Exploring how my work sits and interacts within different situs is now one of my main challenges, where does this work live outside of the studio and a gallery space. And if my work lives in the domestic setting how do I price point my work?
My own pricing for the three little porcelain objects would be £20-£25, but what do others say?
Nicole – £30
Daisy – £30
Rhi – £55
Rhiannon – £60
Taking work out of the studio space is the first step into finding the home for objects. Where does this work live outside of the studio, and how are the inherent qualities translated through space and situ.
My work has developed from exploring shape through material into revealing and exploring the subtle colours within materials that can often be over looked. When porcelain is bisqued there is a very subtle, soft pink quality to the ceramic. Now, as I have been working with this material more and more I am able to see this, but how do I show others that might not pay as close a detail to the work as I do.
Do I highlight using paint and lighting? In these photographs I have taken my work out of the studio and into my home, the light that was around was natural, from the setting sun at around 7.30pm. The gloss of the paint really highlights the pink hue, its more evident and creates and almost glow around the work.
When thinking about my exhibition, do I use a glossy paint to highlight my work, I have started to use textiles so do I use fabric under the work, or do I start to mix paint and subtle colours to highlight fully what I see.
While making work at a desk its easy to get sucked into a frame of thinking, this work only lives in this space. My desk is right next to a window so there is lots of natural light so the porcelain I am working with naturally hold the subtle colours I see, but where else?
Can this work within the home? As a decorative mantel piece? And if so, would there be other decorations on the mantel as shown in mine, or as a stand alone piece of art? These are the important questions as I start to get closer to the deadline for exhibition, and I start to think about marketing these pieces, do they work alone or will this project form into one mass collection of organic forms?
Is there a price tag on this work? One large bag of porcelain from the University has a cost of £14, then there also the making time, firing, and refining that all goes into making my ceramic pieces. If I was to price this I think around £20-£25 would be the price point, I have to factor how long it takes me to make one form, and the work with a wet paint brush can take almost an hour, per object.
One of the biggest questing I get about my work this year is ‘what is it’, or ‘are they vaginas/fannies/flowers’, now when creating my ceramic pieces I have no feminist thoughts running though my mind. I am not thinking of the empowerment of the pussy, I am not creating 100 vaginas. I am working with a material to create interesting and details ceramics that for me, is more about being hands on with the material rather than the final outcome. And that’s not to say the final outcome isn’t important, but its how I get there that I enjoy. The pinching, folding, and shaping of clay is really therapeutic, I can allow my mind to wonder while my fingers pinch flat a ball of clay, and my hands fold into detailed pleats.
What do others say:
Do I start to lean into this way of thinking? Do I apply a theory that I myself don’t necessarily see? I am more interested in exploring textural forms and the subtlety of colour within clay and now, fabric.
But what do I see? Around me in the clay I see the subtle hues and colours, the pleating, and the textures within the material. And my whole work is now focused around showing off this to others in my own way of making.
Amy Marie Evans 