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Perfect Imperfection Collection


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I wanted to share my absolute favorite installation at NCECA ... part of the '50 Women: A Celebration of Women's Contribution to Ceramics'.

 

Anyone who works with porcelain knows what an unforgiving and challenging medium it can be.

Ignore it for a bit and it will crack or warp or otherwise punish you.

Pay total attention and it will still slump, tear, skew and crack just for the fun of it.

 

So it was a joy to see the tableware titled 'Perfect Imperfection Collection'.

The artist, Heather Mae Erickson, obviously has a skilled command of her medium as witnessed in the pieces that showcased perfect execution. But she also highlighted in brilliant gold all the tears and cracks in other pieces. There were also several pieces where the 'marks of process' were jammed into the clay ... pieces where form challenged function.

All in all, a table setting I circled and stared at for the longest time and could easily imagine how much fun it would be to eat a meal off this dinnerware.

 

You might enjoy it or think I am crazy but here it is.

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Chris:

The one regret I do have about KC, not meeting many of the people on the forum. Have been studying porcelain bodies for almost six months before I left to met Ron. There are some gaps in porcelain bodies because potters usually switch to stoneware for those applications. Then of course economics drive the market: potters want porcelain for .35¢ a lb: so the makers supply what we demand.  So now the question becomes: can you formulate a porcelain body that acts more like sculpting clay?  As far as luck: will leave that for those without hope or direction.

>> I actually like the look of imperfection-then again I realize the time it took to make these pieces look like no time was spent.

Nerd

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Interesting but I'm not a fan of sharp edges-I like the finished forms but the pinch rough torn pots do nothing for me.

Its more an art piece than functional wares from my perspective . Its more a conversation work.I have seen so much of this type of work but never in this volume and theme.

Just not my cup of tea.

I realize I.m the only desenter so far in this thread.Oh well

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Back in collage a fellow colleague working on the same theme as us all for the altered pottery project shot his with shotgun . It was a good nice tall vase several feet high-My thought and still is that he ruined it-yes it is art but it was more before that occurred .

I think some of the above work falls into that for me still with the sharp edges.

I see that pot fired collecting dust in his attic today in my minds eye-vs it in a corner holding lilies being admired for what it was made for.If he had added clay to pot or altered the lip it still could be a pot working today even if the top had torn edges. The shotgun blew a hole thru it.

I'm a form follows function guy it seems

Never owned a shotgun or any gun so I have to alter the forms by hand.

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I love the concept; I have a beautiful goddess statue that I made a while ago. Her hands were clasped above her head, as are many goddess figure symbols. The hands broke off, so now she just has arm-stumps reaching up in the air.

 

At first I cried, because this piece meant a lot to me (I made it during a very special time in my life, and put lots of energy into her). Then, in the spirit of this concept of "perfect imperfection", I decided I would put her back together with gold.

 

She will be the Goddess of Never-Not-Broken.

 

hehehe.

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Maybe you have to be a porcelain person to appreciate the message.

 

Some porcelains are total Divas ... They require constant attention and will punish you for the slightest lapse. Do some of them actually gloat when they crack, warp and collapse because you ignored them ... Yes, definitely. So it's fun to see a setting where the artist is almost challenging the clay to do its worst ... Yes, you can crack but I have a bucket of gold luster ... Ha ha ha ... do your worst!

 

... And the above paragraph is indeed the work of a registered member of the porcelain recovery group who did a somewhat similar series several years ago titled 'Nautillus Imperfect'.

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Chris:

Just spent more time studying her work: beginning to see the inspirations she translated somewhat in abstract. I see oyster shells, coral reefs, sea urchins, and limestone at sulfur springs. So for me, I see the duplication of nature that seeming looks imperfect; but yet it is perfectly flawed. The other aspect is the use of color pallet which is tough to apportion given the pieces. She could have easily overdone the gold leaf, but I found it to be perfectly placed on just the imperfect place. When potters do these kinds of pieces; the glaze becomes a focal point quickly. They could of easily gone south if the wrong glaze combination was used.

Nerd

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