This week I worked on my throwing skills. I’ve had a pottery wheel and kiln for a while and felt that I wanted to experiment with a few new things, using clay. Small beginnings but watch this space…
The initial inspiration, besides my love for working with clay, came when I heard about a Khamba. A khamba is an Hindi word for pillar and is the name of this composting method. I wanted to make some of these for personal use but also see if they could inspire further experimentation. I like the idea that they are 3 interconnecting pots and that they provide a practical way for people to be involved in creating healthy soil.
More inspiration came from these pots by Pinar Baklan and Pierre Culot. I love how they intersect/interconnect. I would like to use the opportunity in unit 1.3 to make some of my own inspired by these.
Throwing a simple Vessel. My artworks aim to make this notion of interconnection more visible and emphasised and I hope that through clay, I can add to this body of work. Work that will embody a sense of interconnection. As I experimented with clay and throwing vessels on my pottery wheel, I felt the need to make large vessels that I could split and re-model and assemble. The end result was a vessel that could be separated into three, yet part of the same pot. Each part was then decorated with slip made from natural earth pigment foraged from my surroundings and each represented a different part of the whole (human, plant-life, animal kingdom but still needs some re-thinking). Then carved into using a sgraffito method. This is a speculative example of an artwork created to communicate this notion of interconnectedness to a participating audience.
Here is a video sharing small beginnings on the pottery wheel.
Encaustic experiments. I wanted to see if I can find other ways of creating layers that make certain items in my drawing seem like they recede into the background and create a sense of depth. Below is a video showing surfaces that was made by painting handmade watercolour earth pigment onto paper, then stuck onto board and then covered with encaustic medium. I will experimenting on these with charcoal and more pigment.