The Duality of Clay – Question 7
Why do you choose to work in clay?
In conversation with Carla Lonzi in 1967 Pino Pascali said,
Primitive man, the man who walks naked, notices that the sun rises to the right of a particular mountain and sets to the left of a particular tree. The same man, walking through the forest, discovers that the sun also rises behind another mountain. When that man needs to drink he creates a shape with his own hands. When he makes that gesture with his hands he uses his whole energy. He creates a civilization, a world all of his own. It’s not a work for a work’s sake; what is important is the intensity which is brought to bear on its realization.
An artist makes use of what they have at hand. Clay is simple and direct yet it sets challenges that give the work direction. It allows me to juggle the pre-visualisation of ideas before beginning a piece with the spontaneous generation of forms, patterns and significances whilst work progresses. I use clay as a malleable stone. Carving on this scale with stone would be impossible. Modelling is my first instinct.
At the moment I am considering other materials and methods. However, it is important that the medium not only responds to my ideas but also possesses a provenance, cultural and poetic which resonates with the work’s content. The plastic quality of clay is a property of its mineral constituents. However, clay is also closely associated with organic material. When fired, all the that is burnt away and a hard mineral stone remains. This process of physical and chemical change is a literal analogy of the mineralisation and transformation of organic material into fossil remains.
Once fired, clay is extremely durable but equally brittle and fragile. A piece becomes a hostage to fortune, its survival contingent on the vagueries of the world, lying within this duality of permanence and the ephemeral. It is of almost universal abundance and its humble origin fascinates me; the way in which such a material can be transformed into the most exquisite object. Ceramic artifacts are associated with all but a very few cultures from very ancient times to today. They are often one of the few pieces of surviving evidence of human activity. Civilisations and societies are often classified according to the pottery they leave behind. Clay lies on a continuum of human existence, it transcends the everyday and accompanies the human journey frough time, even in today’s technologically rich society.