spring

32"x24"x18"
cone 04 multiple firings
2010
 
Tackling the human figure, especially the face, seemed like a guareented fail. I thought of it as this really hard thing that I would only be able to do after years of practice. Then I had an assignment that required me to take a historical form and recreate it in a conemtorary context and I thought of George. My background in archeology had led me to reasearch on Tang Dynasty ceramics. It is a time period I am very familiar with including their vocabulary of form. During this period, tomb guardians were common and consisted of two main types, the warrior and the disfigured, grotesque "demon". Both were used to ward off evil spirits and their specific details were reflective of the cultures values and ethnic clashes.
 
I choose George Bush not only because he was/is such a polarizing figure but also, much like the originall tomb guardians of the time, represented comentary on how he embodied an ideology that was distrusted and how stupidity can truely be scary.

The concept for Passage is based on climate, and more specifically bringing the scope of climate within the personal scale. I wanted to create something that offered the viewer a unique experience in person which has been one of the challenges of representing it in pictures. Each individual feather is able to move and in mass, this movement creates sound. Seemingly simple, there are a total of about 4000 pieces, each of varying size and strategically placed to create a sense of dept, currents, and the complexity of global climactic systems.
 
Another thing I set out to accomplish was to create something that is atypical to what is commonly periceived as clay. For the lay public who are not often in contact with contemporary ceramics, I think the general thought is to associate it with a more historical or utilitarian use.
 
For myself, clay is not just a material but more of an old friend. When each piece is finished, it feels like we are able to have a conversation.