Drawings for Prometheus
Fire is both my subject and my tool. In my work, ceramic materials make visible the metaphysical nature of energy exchange. These “object drawings” represent a moment past. They are relics of an energy that was once very present and very alive. In this state, heat is insinuated but the light of the space in which the pieces reside remains very present through shadow. These “object drawings” create a post-phenomenon experience, acting as an artifact of some great transformation that once occurred.
In my studio, I play the role of alchemist by setting up a series of circumstances that transform in the firing process—a fixed set of perimeters in which chaotic events can occur. Lava glaze, a porcelain slip-cast figurine, and a saggar used to shape the process have undergone a metamorphosis through heat. I cut into this block of material to excavate a porcelain shape—a “drawing” that is an artifact of the event. The undulating line of porcelain is the meeting point between mass and cavity—the collision of two energy forces. I excavate this path as a linear record of the creative moment. My process is an instinctual response to beauty and composition. These forms represent the earth, the body, and all that contain.
“Thus ‘the eminent dignity of the arts of fire’ arises from the fact that their products bear the most profoundly human mark, the mark of primitive love…The forms created by fire are modeled more than any other…”
Gaston Bachelard
My creative explorations with the forces of heat and light are manifested through ceramic materials, but they speak of greater relationships, both personal and geological, that serve as life’s driving force.