Bones, Fertility symbols

The porcelain has had me thinking with my hands about bones and fragments of creatures we were too late to meet, or maybe human, something precious and fragile and robust simultaneously. I have the feeling that each material, each type of clay infers its own meaning- it has already lived as something and to make it into something else entirely would be wrong. Terracotta makes me want to make tool like objects, crank becomes rough hand built pots, porcelain is too fine to become anything that isn't fine and made with care.  I have still been working with the wax, anticipating more casting. The forms that have been unfolding from my hands have been reminiscent of vulvas and phalluses. This was not my intention, but while I was making the forms, I was thinking of seed pods and natural forms, and of corse in nature there are many intimations of genitals. It seems like the work is leaning towards some kind of anthropological thought process- found objects, results of hands and seeds and excavations of soil and sand 

How to work with death

Two of my family members have died in the past year, which has made me feel completely crushed over the past month. Very bad timing, having just started uni, for me to be grieving, but it also seems to be informing my work in a way that interests me. I have been obsessed with devotional artwork, shrines and votives for a long time, and recently I discovered the decadent and ridiculous beauty that is the reliquary. I first found the reliquary of the tooth of Mary Magdalene in a book on biblical artwork that I found in the library. 

In this context, I can make sense of how I could make devotional artwork of my own. Something that I have struggled with is the idea that the work should be directional; without real devotion and worship of something, me making 'devotional' artwork is empty and in a way voyeuristic, taking inspiration from something and imitating it although it has no real meaning for me. So the idea that I could also use this form of sculpture making to incorporate my grief into my work, rather than trying to circumvent it in order to make work, makes sense to me.

Reliquaries are seen in many different cultures and religions, but most often in catholicism. I love the obscenity of worshipping the dead using their remains. It seems to me to be so in conflict with the nature of catholicism, with it's preference for concealing things and denying sensuous experiences and pleasures. It is very rare now for people to have witnessed death in it's true form, open caskets have fallen out of fashion and the body will be taken away fairly quickly after someone dies. This changing context around dead bodies makes the reliquaries even stranger. To present something that most people would find disgusting in our reserved western culture, as a divine and precious object, is so deeply subversive and strange, but it's rooted in tradition and therefor not questioned.

 The preservation of these remains becomes so important that no expense is spared in their creation, and the artist is rarely credited. I love that. It truly is very refined artwork, but not for an art audience. It is a reflection of the natural human attraction to beauty that can never be stifled, and for which there is no budget. 

Reliquary of the virgin and saints

The saint Eustace head

Arm Reliquary of the apostles

I also see the death motif reflected in the artefacts I have been making. There is something about excavation running through the work- pulling things out of the ground, or a body. Things that were once a part of something bigger and still represent that something, although now that the context has changed, they become something different, mysteriously separate from our way of life. 

Although I am not eager to admit this- because of the way that it makes me feel- the bone like objects seem to be wholly inspired by may (dead) aunt. She had a malformation in a bone in her wrist years ago in my childhood which she had surgically removed. The called is a 'ganglian' and she asked to keep it but was denied. This narrative seems to always be in the back of my mind when I am making the bones. I can't help but think of them as malformations of some animal or human skeleton. My aunt also worked with porcelain in her artwork, so it makes sense that I would be thinking of her.  

Artefacts and Bones

 The artefacts that I have been making have been ebbing away from tools, looking more like seed pods and bones of some unknown animal. I like the idea of bone- like found objects that have no clear use or origin, so I bought some porcelain to work into imitations of bones, and I also prepared my terracotta objects for casting. My plan initially was to cast them in marble dust and resin, but marble dust has it's own history and temperament that isn't really that relevant to what I am thinking about. I'm wanting the cast objects to have a kind of white translucency that intimates something bodily with it's appearance. I also started thinking about using sand, earth or salt in the casting. There is the potential problem that this would separate from the resin in an unsightly and unnatural way, but I'm open to experimenting with it and seeing what potential it has. There may also be a way for me to sculpt sand or earth or salt directly instead of casting it. Maybe using some kind of vacuum technology. I'm very interested in the idea of using salt, earth, sand, and even sugar, although I'm moving away from that slightly because there are qualities and connotations to the sugar that I don't like, such as it's stickiness, and I wouldn't want the viewer of my work to interpret it as me making some kind of pun about sweetness. That doesn't interest me. It's not the flavour, or even to some extent,  the edibility of the material that interests me, It's the cultural significance, what it represents, the labour involved in it's harvest and processing, and the effect that it has on people.

The above image is terracotta objects that I have covered with PVA to ready them for silicon mould making, Below is the beginning of my experimentation with porcelain.The larger pieces evoke hip joints or knees for me.It's a surprisingly long process making them, and the porcelain is high maintenance because it dries quickly and every mark made is highly visible. It's difficult to not make the longer bones look phallic, which is definitely not what I am aiming for and I wouldn't like it to be interpreted in that way.

Casting artefacts

Yesterday I spent the whole day creating artefacts for investment casting. Fittingly, this is an ancient process which suits the concept that I am working with as well as the creation of the items themselves. I plan to cast some aluminium, some brass, and a small amount of silver. The articles are supposed to look like something between a tool and some kind of bone. I'm interested to see what the effect of metal adds to these items, It might not be right, in which case I will experiment with marble dust and I would also love to work with glass if it's possible.

Unknown Artefacts

David suggested that instead of literally copying the idea of combs as artefacts, I interpret it in my own way and create 'found' items with no clear use or history. I enjoyed letting the clay dictate it's own form, instead of trying to produce something refined that had a formulaic design-which brings it's own set of problems. I would have liked to have the possibility of more detail in what I make though and the clay is better for large forms. The next step that I would like to take with these objects is finding a way of firing them in a primitive way. Ideally in a way that is reflected in the result. I would like to create some sort of outdoor kiln and have scorch marks on the finished pieces. 

Combs

I have been thinking about combs for a while and drawing them instinctively. For me they link in with the idea of artefacts and ancient cultures- the pursuit of beauty, the ritualistic creation of something beautiful and precious to try and turn someone into something beautiful and precious.I think that many of my drawings reflect African inspired imagery, probably stemming from the African sculptures and artwork I grew up around in my family life. For me the style toes the line between rough and hardy and refined.

I had been toying for a long time with the idea of casting and making my own combs, artefacts in counter-intuitive materials, modern materials like sugar and pink plastic, but actually the materials that really interest me are natural ones; metal, clay, wood; for the history that they hold not just in an anthropological sense but also in terms of the material itself having a life and a growth and a relationship with the earth.

Blind Portaits

Although I feel a kind of shame around drawing in this way- it's almost too easy and satisfying- I love doing it and I love the result. I'm still puzzling over how I can take it further, but for now it actually feels like the only work I can really do, because it's quiet and portable, meditative, not messy. I'm doing a lot of grieving at the moment and I feel like this has to come into my work at some point because it's been a big part of my life over the past two years, but it does make creating work feel a little counter intuitive right now. It definitely factors in to my interest in worship, shrines, and particularly reliquaries, as a way of creating something beautiful from death. I would love to make use of the ashes of my aunt and grandfather in this way, but it feels very important that something actually beautiful comes out of this, to actually honour my loved ones and not take advantage of their deaths for the shock factor.

Blind scenes

These are a series of Blind drawings of scenes that I have been producing. Im looking to turn the blind drawing process into a longer and more fruitful experience, with more detail, but keeping the gestural and playful quality which I love. I had been thinking about producing some kind of sculpture from the blind drawings but now I am wondering if there is more potential in just pushing the drawings themselves further. I plan to do a kind of panoramic impression of a scene, using fold out people, and perhaps a few different pens which compliment each other tonally and pull attention to different aspects of the scenery, such as focusing on the shadows of the room with a soft grey, moving through the details with a sharp black, etc etc. I have also thought about bringing collage into the work, using a scalpel to remove parts of the image and making windows to other textures. There is also the potential to work with paint, screen printing or glass with these images. None of this necessarily feels very relevant to what I have been researching with prayer and shrines, but I know that I need to be working even if the links aren't immediately visible.

Next moves

I have been finding it hard to get started, and make anything that i feel really contributes to the flow of project making instead of just experimenting and information gathering. It feels to me that a really important direction and resource for me to explore is casting- it has the potential for me to create my own kind of 'spiritual currency' in the form of coins or plates inspired by the Milagros or Tamatas, and also drawing inspiration from the Joss paper of Chinese spiritual practice. Numeracy seems to be an important feature in worship in a way; the shrines filled with many reproduced votives are symbolic of the community that makes up the devotees of the object of devotion. So many hands and personal desires and wishes touch those places and make their decadent mark. This also ties into my attraction to the concept of ritual as a process in itself. I like the idea of many small acts, many days of small acts, contributing to the creation of something opulant and beautiful. It's like blades of grass- one on its own is not so beautiful or impressive, but thousands make up a velvet landscape.

Blind drawings

Blind drawing is a practice that i have kept going since my first year, when I went to a pub event with an illustration group called 'drink and draw'. I felt such an affinity with the technique that I kept the thread running through my personal sketchbooks, which are a huge part of how I process life and remain in my practice whether or not I am at uni. An aspect of the practice that I love is the idea of ''accountability'' in art making. I see the technique as a kind of escape from accountability; the work creates itself, and if it doesn't fit into my interpretation of 'good' art, it's not my fault. I have questioned many times whether blind drawing is me putting more trust in my eye or my hand; I am bolder and more confident in my drawing when I don't look at the page, but the observing itself becomes keener and more intimate. I often blind draw people without asking first, and if my hands are concealed, the moment can become unsettling for them when they become aware of my searching stare of their face and form, unbroken by looking at the page.
I would like to approach the idea of taking these drawings and this technique further. The moment of their creation is so fast, and very satisfying, but I would love there to be more life in them than a page. I have thought about casting the drawings and creating a kind of mobile, and screen printing them is also satisfying, but there needs to be a point to it, and so far I haven't found one. I have thought about doing longer studies of rooms and people and also nudes, which, even if it doesn't enter into any 'finished' or presentable work, serves me well as it opens me up and makes the process of creating work easier in other areas.