I have had three shows with mixed success and every time I have the feeling that either the buyers are wrong for my work or my work is wrong for the kind of event.
What I mean is that if I am at a craft fair my work seems too posh and special and fragile and not for everyday use, if I am at a London gallery, it is not expensive enough or not “artistic” enough.
The discrepancy between urban and country culture is not working for me. I am in between the two and I think I do not fit in either particularly by being Italian. I aspire to make work that would sell in galleries, I am not even sure anymore if I need it to be functional and about hospitality, I want to express “Me” and to be well made.
I think this takes me right in the middle of the diatribe of what is art and what is craft, and I have to understand this meaning in order to decide where to position myself.
I am reading Vicky Perry’s book “Abstract Painting” and I think that often changing the words from painting to ceramics, can give me some clue to the problem. I think the craft of ceramics can be associated to representational painting, while ceramic art functional or not is like abstract painting.
I am now paraphrasing from page 14 and 15 changing painting for ceramics: “ Is it possible to make a piece of ceramics that does not in any way associate with everyday experience? When viewing art we decipher and measure what the work means to us. Meaning is something our minds build by connecting one experience with another. Is it ever possible for a ceramic work to have meaning other than function? … A deeply moving artwork transcends the simple triggering of associations. Its visual strength will overpower the references and we will carry the memory of that object”. When I walk through a ceramic fair I look t the other objects, some seem to me to be simply beautifully crafted useful objects, others seem to have something more, a spark and a beauty that puts them on a different level. Is this something that everybody could see or it is subjective? Do the famous potters that show at Collect and in the biggest galleries, put something special in their work that makes that Art, or they just appeal to those curators and they have made them famous?
I have felt stuck for some time now, after the refusal at Cockpit Arts. I have tried to work out how to find my own rightness in my ceramic work and in my painting and I always feel lost and with lack of direction. Two books and some deep dreams have pointed out to me the real problem. One book was the Zen of creative painting by Jeanne Carbonetti and the Tao of watercolour. These antique oriental theories are not so far from Jewish spiritualism in a certain way and I can relate to them. The thing that touched me most was the theory that one has to let the deep inner creativity rise to the surface and then we will experience the rightness of work. If we are in tune with the self the work produced has integrity and this is what I can’t yet do. I have tried to follow the Author’s suggestion to make my own “Mandala” but then I was unsure on how to read it, I still did not know where to go.
Then it happened quite by accident while I was writing my 500 words project for the Ma application. I absentmindedly drew a doodle with arrows going higher and further and then quite without thinking my hand put a barrier cutting across the higher arrows. I was stunned by my subconscious’ work revealing that I block myself in. Something in me does not allow me to let go to reach that deep space of true inspiration of true freedom. It is an old problem resurfacing. For many years I hoped it would go away and solve itself without me having to unravel it, but I think now I know I have to face it if I want to find my real artist’s self. I went to Laura to ask her if she new a colleague psychoanalyst to whom I can go, and she said she could try and help me, and she suggested another book to read: Susan Jeffers “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. I immediately bought it and realized a minute later that it is not for me. I do not have a problem with self-esteem and with taking decisions I am always very proud of changing my life and finding solutions and I am in tune with my needs. I actually feel I have the opposite problem, I always act too much instead to stop and let my self feel. I am too rational and in control, I don’t like to wait and let my subconscious take over.
It happened with the decision to make functional ceramics, instead to explore a deeper conceptual me. I did not have the courage to go through a completely unknown path. May be now with the Ma is the time to finally free myself.
It is very hard to restart after a fall. I have been rejected for a studio space at Cockpit Arts after an interview that I thought had been successful. On top of this my kiln broke and I now have to buy a new one with 4-5 weeks for delivery. I have to put it all in prospective because luckily I do not depend on my work for a living, but it is my personal satisfaction and self esteem to have suffered.
More than ever I wish I had a mentor to talk about my thoughts and my creative ideas and to help me focus on progressing.
I asked for feedback and they told me, very politely, that my work is not at the stage of achievement that they would consider in their showcase. It has potential but it is not there yet. I happen to agree with this but I do not know what I am still missing, and how to achieve it. What astonishes me is that they could see this and make such a judgement after interviewing me and handling my work for half an hour. What exactly did they see? Is it a personal thing or there is some general universal principle against which they analyse the work?
I have drawn new shapes and I have tried to make them with my materials but I do not know if it worth it to pursue this idea or not.
I am looking to put some fun in my cups. I have a memory if my grandmother’s teacups and I would like to make my contemporary and thrown version of them. I want to find a way to add feet to them to be raised from the saucer and that is a technical challenge. Is this just a playtime experiment or it can bring to something new?
I was very stimulated by reading the article by Sanam Emami in Interpreting ceramics www.Uwic.ac.uk/ICRC/issue009/articles/01.html), because it touches some of the points I am very interested too.
In the Abstract she states that her work “focuses on the potential of ornament and pattern to interact and blur the line between historical conventions and contemporary life”
I am reading James Trilling's books on ornament and I would like to make mine his idea that sometimes "More is more" (pg 12 of the book Ornament a modern perspective) not " Less is more" like everybody always says today.
I grew up in northern Italy surrounded by geometrical patterns, 18th century's architecture (French inspired) and nature and I have always been interested in ornament (every piece of paper left around ends up covered by doodles.
I am trying to understand how I can apply my idea of ornament to my functional ceramics, and I feel that reproducing my doodles on the surface is simplistic, I would like to study its context and make it part of a big picture. The Islamic world is not part of my background like it is for Sanam. I suppose I am looking for an intellectual discussion about these issues, so that my work can evolve through an aimed project of experimentation.
At the moment I think I do not want to change my throwing technique, my colors and the connection with food and drink , because they are still part of my critical journey and have still potential, but I want to add content and really understand the form.
Parallel to my painting goes the thinking related to my ceramics. Here I know with more certainty how to do it and there is always the scope for improving the technique, but I lack the confidence in trying new things. I find that I can’t put aside a period of time and experiment, freely, to find new directions. I feel obliged to stay with my standard production. If I adventured in a period of discovery, I would feel suddenly very anxious and try to gather conclusions too early. I think that in a studio with other artists I would be able to ask for the support of others. I could talk it aloud and find the solution and I would have the strength to persevere in the experiment, without looking for the answer.A lot of ideas form in my mind all the time but I postpone the time to use them. It is easier to write than to make.
In the Easter holiday I went to New York for the first time and I found the architecture very exciting.
James Trilling came again in my aid when looking at the reflections of old building on the glass walls of the new. He, born and brought up there, writes:
“ the past alone does not change, though the ways we see it and use it are always changing. It is like an older building that we renovate to suit our need…In recent years, the need to reconcile past and present, or at least to let them coexist has struck me in every visit to New York. The smooth glistening facades of the last half century stand out against the lush textures of the older city, but the combination has an energy beyond simple contrast. Reflected in huge expanses of tinted glass, premodernist buildings have a ghostly second life, while the newer structures borrow the ornament they meant to eclipse.”
