I’ve been examining ways of filling the spaces or reservoirs in the grid of the form. I’ve been using slips and glazes to expore this, letting some of the glaze spill over the boundaries of the spaces. This is leading to interesting results and is changing the sense of boundary that the reservoirs have.
A question that has arisen for me has been the purpose of the former, is it subordinate to the mark making or does it play a more important role with the context of the mark? So, I’m going to explore this question and see how I can manipulate the form whether through the making process, the material or the firing process itself.
“I think it is a record of the workings of thought that we see embedded in the drawn, in the sense that it is both the actions of which Valery speaks as ‘willed attention’ ” (Avis Newman)
Avis Newman’s ideas on drawing remind me of Merleau Ponty’s use of the example of two halves of an orange, to represent the conscious and the unconscious. The inbetween point where you are neither in one state nor the other can be achieved by various means. One of the ways that this can be achieved is through drawing as it is a very immediate activity and all that is needed is pencil and paper.
Language can be limiting in terms of expressing abstract concepts such as these. The creation of a visual language through drawing and mark making has the potential to express such concepts in a transparent manner.
