I have been doing some volunteering at the British Ceramics Biennial, which has not only given me the opportunity to meet a bunch of great people and contemplate the outstanding array of works on show .. it has also given me the chance to have a good look at the Spode Factory, which houses the exhibition. There are lots of remains, from when the factory was operational, still in place and I have come across some intriguing ceramic objects … that perhaps I can take into further work.
Whilst on a shift by the back entrance I came across a bizarre pile of gravel by my feet. Gravel was already on my brain after working on my piece for the AirSpace studio members’ Assemblage exhibition. So I was giving this heap quite a bit of my attention. I suddenly realised that it was awfully regular looking and had a strange blue tinge. Picking up a handful, I realised it was a heap of discarded ceramic pieces. All the same shape (triangular prisms) and two tones, grey and blue. I find this strikingly fitting with my previous thoughts on gravel as a mass of neglected stones. Similarly in this instance ceramic works that are usually regarded as precious, decorative and fragile had found an unusual home beneath my feet. They were happily being completely ignored until their manmade regularity became apparent. This seems like the reverse concept of my gravel pins – concealing as opposed to revealing. I have gotten an urge since being in the city to start playing/making/working with ceramics, despite my negligible skill. I feel that the idea of ceramic gravel may be a healthy starting point for my upcoming making….
I also came across this lump of dried out clay – somebody’s working remains. It is an intriguing object; to me it resembles both a comb and a block out of which somebody was cutting tagliatelle like strips. I wonder what it was used for? And what it could become.
One of the themes currently being explored in the 2015 British Ceramics Biennial, in Stoke, is ‘the production line’. The AirSpace studio artists currently have a show titled Assemblage, in the AirSpace Resources Room, that reflects our own interest in the process of production.
I thought this would be a prime opportunity to relook at the photos I take which inform my work. My final works are normally succinct sculptural or photographic entities that attempt to create perfect images – images that expose misunderstandings through their own warped logic. To get to these more resolved pieces, however, I do a lot of reading and looking and photographing and finding random, tenuous links between objects, images and stories. Spaghetti Grows On Trees is an ongoing collection of these photos that aid my thought processes, which looks at our relationship with the absurd and myths. For Assemblage I have bought four of these photos together in an attempt to create a dialogue. All of these images speak of objects we recognise but seem displaced or ‘other’ through manipulations of different kinds; their functions and forms are warped; roles are shifted and hence questioned. Objects, becoming protagonists in front of the camera, adopt new roles as ‘things’. One of these objects is a rock that I discovered in the wilderness whilst on a residency in Iceland. It has inexplicably regular holes that pass right the way through it, which seem far too precise to have been made by nature.
I am also experimenting with different ways of recognising the photographic print as ‘thing’. I have experimented for this exhibition with printing on Japanese Washi paper, which has a light and translucent materiality. I liked the manner in which it floats on the wall much like some of the objects in the photographs themselves. I think this is something that can still be pushed further.
I also used gravel and magnets to pin the prints to the wall. I was interested in gravel as dull decoration, how the individual stones as entities are disregarded when in mass. I was looking to highlight the beauty found in these objects, commonly out of view, through isolating them. This is a concept I’m growing more interested in through reading The Quadruple Object by Graham Harman, the idea that we forget certain properties of objects when they don’t appear active to our consciousness, i.e. how much of what surrounds us ‘retreats into a shadowy underworld’.
Enjoyed reading documentation of Brian Eno’s John Peel lecture today. A perfect inspirational read for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Eno talks on the importance of the creative ‘industries’ and the serious function of art in all of our lives, stating how the arts are important for our ‘exposure to the joys and freedoms of a false world in order that we might recognise those and locate them in the real world.’
May next week involve plenty of false world creation!
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/6music/johnpeellecture/brian-eno-john-peel-lecture.pdf
(also on iPlayer I believe!)
I started my blog a month ago, in conjunction with starting my residency at AirSpace … a whole month has passed and I haven’t posted a single update! It has been a year since I have had a studio so it is exciting to be getting back into making work and researching in ernest again, however, I have been equally occupied in exploring Stoke as I am completely new to the area. I shall be posting my backlog of news over the next couple of days and now start to blog regularly as I am finally feeling fully settled.
My first major discovery has been the Staffordshire Oatcake. I am interested in the fact that this regional delicacy was completely unknown to me (and all those I know back down South). We have extensive knowledge of pho, tacos and bratwurst, yet comparatively local delicacies (like the Staffs oatcake) in fact appear far more foreign. I wonder if this is to do with the movement of communities? Or if this is more an effect of lifestyle programming and trends?
Interestingly, some of the myths tied with the origin of the Oatcake are exotic in nature. One of which is the idea that oatcakes were bought back by the Staffordshire Regiment from service in the Indian Raj. Some claim that the local soldiers took such a liking to poppadoms that they tried to emulate them on their return to Staffordshire. In fact, historical evidence dates the humble oatcake much earlier, nonetheless, it’s still affectionately known locally as a ‘Potteries Poppadom’, or a ‘Tunstall Tortilla’.
In my practice I am growing increasingly interested in the generation of myths and the manner in which we fill in gaps in our knowledge. In particular the allure of the exotic in this process.
