CityScape
2017
stoneware, slips, underglaze, glaze
various sizes
I am not a city person. The theme of this show and the resulting body of work challenged me to consider ideas I wouldn’t normally approach. I moved into the city after spending many years living on the rural outskirts. As I spent more time in the city than I had in years, I noticed the small things that came to mind and the stories that unfolded. These narratives came to me as I performed the everyday tasks of walking my daughter to school, cycling to work, navigating transit.
I have always been interested in story - visual, written, oral - and spent many years as a writer and hold a degree in Folklore. Fiction and non-fiction hold the same fascination for me, and these pots are both. The pieces are an amalgamation of many cities from my past and present. They are condensed, as a poem might be.
I wanted to make work unlike the functional tableware I have produced. I wanted to confront my comfort-level with drawing and use new methods of resist and layering. With surfaces that are more tactile and varied, these pieces are meant to be functional but also simply objects to reflect upon. They are containers of various kinds, vessels to hold everyday things like flowers, knitting needles, or cookies, but also hold an idea in progress, an anecdote.
I have spent a lot of time observing and pondering the dark and light aspects of urban life. At first, I struggled with how represent the cityscape in a way that I was comfortable with. After I got over my initial resistance, my curiosity was peaked and I began to tune into the fine details of the city instead of seeing it as one large blurry whole. It was mind-opening, and I see this collection of work as the beginning of thoughts on a new landscape.
2017
stoneware, slips, underglaze, glaze
various sizes
I am not a city person. The theme of this show and the resulting body of work challenged me to consider ideas I wouldn’t normally approach. I moved into the city after spending many years living on the rural outskirts. As I spent more time in the city than I had in years, I noticed the small things that came to mind and the stories that unfolded. These narratives came to me as I performed the everyday tasks of walking my daughter to school, cycling to work, navigating transit.
I have always been interested in story - visual, written, oral - and spent many years as a writer and hold a degree in Folklore. Fiction and non-fiction hold the same fascination for me, and these pots are both. The pieces are an amalgamation of many cities from my past and present. They are condensed, as a poem might be.
I wanted to make work unlike the functional tableware I have produced. I wanted to confront my comfort-level with drawing and use new methods of resist and layering. With surfaces that are more tactile and varied, these pieces are meant to be functional but also simply objects to reflect upon. They are containers of various kinds, vessels to hold everyday things like flowers, knitting needles, or cookies, but also hold an idea in progress, an anecdote.
I have spent a lot of time observing and pondering the dark and light aspects of urban life. At first, I struggled with how represent the cityscape in a way that I was comfortable with. After I got over my initial resistance, my curiosity was peaked and I began to tune into the fine details of the city instead of seeing it as one large blurry whole. It was mind-opening, and I see this collection of work as the beginning of thoughts on a new landscape.
