Stretching the Limits

In am concerned with Movement, Flow and Texture in my ceramic abstract objects: I search for the illusion of these abstract pieces being in motion and very dynamic. The way I achieve this is by a technique involving a very physical and strong bodily dialogue with an initial big block of clay: scratching the surface with scrapers or other tools to create strong textures on the outside, beating with hammers, fists, to open the bloc from the inside, then stretching the clay only from the inside, till I achieve the shape and movement I am looking for, and object with very flowing lines and curves, as if caught in a moment from here to there.

“Process” is for me as important as the aesthetic result of the final piece, and I try for the piece to convey this. This process is in some ways a fast forward of what happens in nature’s eroding forces over millennia. My work of the last 8 years, having assumed those sculptural free features, is the result of years of working on the wheel, slowly abstracting the vessel into a freer style, till taking the rotating movement off the wheel completely and eventually into the realm of free clay work described above. Thus I got to my personal approach to clay work, in which finding the limits of how far clay lets itself be stretched, how far it will go with me when forming it into the desired shapes, is an essential part of my dialogue with clay.