Snow Series
2007
2006
2005
Gallery
This body of work presents an investigation of the relationship between craft, design and industry in contemporary ceramics. The objects address questions of sustainability of craft; trends in contemporary ceramic craft practice; the relationship between craft, design and industry; and the symbiotic relationship between maker, process, user, object and contemporary culture. The work created is based on research into contemporary trends in ceramics studio practice, object design and industrial ceramic design. The studio production methodology which drives the work privileges the position of the craft object as the centre of a wheel, drawing together a myriad of dialogues addressing economics, politics, technology, process, interface and interaction, material culture, the tracing of memory, action and thought, and the sustainability of craft in a global economy of disposable objects. The manner in which individually crafted ceramic objects are perceived relative to their mass produced counterparts - how they are utilized and valued - presents an obvious separation between the two modes of production. Finding such a strong desire in the consumer sector to fill the everyday with objects of mass production signaled a need to evaluate the handmade, its position in material culture and its potential to offer alternative valuable characteristics and potentially a source of resistance to object disposability. As the ethical dilemmas of disposability arose, I began, as a producer of objects, to question the need to create objects in an object saturated culture. The result of the investigation positioned the crafted object as a source of material and production process knowledge. What became apparent was that there was a separation forged by industry between design, production, and the viewer/user of and object. It was a separation that distanced the user from access to knowledge, which in turn risked creating an environment of indifference and passive engagement with the object. Through my work I aim to reconnect the maker and audience of an object through the object itself acting as an interface in a reciprocal relationship. The ensuing dialogue resulting from this interaction would be one reflecting upon material, process, individuality, memory and narrative. To make specific reference to this discourse of the handmade and the industry produced object I chose to create objects by hand which were influenced by industrial ceramic forms, which could possess qualities of craftsmanship associated with the crafted object and speak to the different methodologies of product design. Central to the production of this work was the challenge to source the means to add value to an object that could extend its life beyond the cycle of consumerism. Craft exists in relation to both design and industry; it is influenced and intrinsically linked to both, and it is also influential in return resulting from its long tradition and refined level of skill. An awareness of where the craftsperson wishes to locate themselves in relation to these other disciplines is a moral and ethical questioning of the political and economic views of progress and creative exploration. It is not however about placing craft as a binary opposite to industry, or elevated in a hierarchy, as there are too many related debates extolling the validity of both. Rather the question is posed about the ability of design to overlap or bridge the difference between craft and industry. Looking at ideologies of capitalism, commercial industry and the marketing of disposable products through and emphasis on progress, it is a challenge to not only produce, but distribute objects into the everyday of our culture that might present a heightened awareness of craftsmanship, conceptual ideas, process and individual choices or desires. (Disposable in this argument includes and specifically relates to objects created or designed in response to the will of fashion, those which are temporal rather than timeless, with emphasis on design over adequate manufacture, non-sustainable in their inability to be upgraded or repaired.) Often craft, and in this case - ceramic craft, is positioned as offering resistance to the disposable economic system through its attachment to the handmade or its academic and theoretical underpinnings. But how is this resistance expressed or addressed through the objects themselves? As Helen Rees writes in Patterns of Design: Thinking and Making in Industrial Design; “A craft object often reveals much about the skill and the technology used to make it. The relationship between craft process and product is likely to be, if not quite transparent, then at least relatively accessible to most of us. There is a pleasure from wearing or using something whose creation we can both admire and understand. In a world where we have lost touch with the business of making things, the craft object restores for us the connection between making and using.” Is then this connection between making and using the value found in the crafted object? Is it simply knowledge transfer of process and material knowledge from maker to user which creates value, or could the objects we surround ourselves with and interact with everyday also be used to educate, to challenge and change our habits, to provoke a greater emotional response to the physical world? Would a greater understanding of objects not render us more actively engaged in the physical world; in our material, social and cultural environments? Can the notion of function be reinterpreted to include intellectual, political or environmental functions? Baudrillard theorizes that “objects become signs with no meaning beyond their symbolic exchange value within the endless cycle of fashion.” The crafts challenge this notion and its implication that one falls into a trap of creating empty meaningless objects subject to the will of fashion, or objects completely removed from discourses of contemporary practice and culture. The reading of craft objects redirects us towards the value associated with the handmade, the philosophy of how beautiful and unique objects enrich our lives through mirroring our own individuality. It is through the responsiveness of contemporary craft practitioners to socio-cultural change that their work becomes part of a symbiotic interchange with their audience. The series of work is produced in multiples, playing with repetition to highlight the varying proportions and the consideration taken for the uniqueness of each user. It acknowledges an individual that cannot be forced or fit within any prescribed notion of a standard or assumed average consumer. Each ceramic form is created by hand, thrown on the potters’ wheel, and through its design presents both the industrial and handcrafted aesthetic. Through the methodology of positioning the work within the designed industrial aesthetic and working towards the handmade, rather than singularly representing the handmade, the duality of aesthetics is used to highlight the relationship between both methodologies of production, the overlap and the differences, the variations in the value systems established by the economy and brings both into a conversation regarding the use and function of everyday objects. The exterior of each form is defined by a tool resulting in an aesthetic associated with slip casting, precision and industry. By contrast the interior surface of each ceramic piece contain the markings of the interaction between the hand and material, void of any mark by a tool. The interior glaze varies in its color, hue, transparency and glaze qualities. Glaze surfaces such as crazed and crystalline are employed to demonstrate the versatility of materials and a range of aesthetic choices. The work is produced in Southern Ice porcelain, a material chosen due to the quality of the fired material and its extreme translucency. Not only does the stark white of the material allude to bone china used in industry; but the visual delicacy and intrinsic strength of the material - and in particular this translucent quality inter-playing with light - bring the material as well as the form to the foreground of the reading of the work. The porcelain is also a material that allows for the delicacy of finger marks to remain visible, as well as the shadow of the users hand to be visible through the translucency of the walls of the piece during use. Beyond the visual aesthetics, the form is also designed to be a tactile object. The trimmed base of each form is devised to actively engage the users hand with the intent of disallowing passive indifference to the objects that are used in everyday context. Why not fill our everyday lives with objects that enrich us rather than simply function? Handmade craft is not produced in isolation and therefore must acknowledge the sources and dialogues at play in its production. This exhibition addresses the need for discourse between these the fields of specialization within the ceramic discipline; industry, design and art. If this conference aims to critically question where emphasis need be located in contemporary craft discourse, this exhibition aims to address how all three methodologies are intrinsically linked and influencing each other. As a maker my methodology must be far reaching in its scope of reference to be better equipped to address larger discourses of relevance to our societies. The work addresses how through crafted objects, knowledge of material, process and individual maker is expressed; which in turn enriches the objects with a different sort of value, one that isn’t subjected to the will of fashion and technological progress, and a value that might create a more dynamic, meaningful relationship between objects and their owners. Objects are active rather than passive in their distributions of taste, social status and ideology; they are active in their impact upon our lives and activities, on our ethics and moral choices in contemporary society. The argument presented is that the more valued the object as a result of craftsmanship and understanding of process; the more knowledge transfer to the user; the more sustainable the design resulting from its personal associations, history, aesthetics; and the more the methodology of production is inclusive of other disciplines/aesthetics and ideologies; the more likely the object is viewed as non-disposable.
Past work
Stoneware 2007