Today is May 28th, international ceramists day. Yay!
Pros, artists, artisans and casual makers come together in this day to celebrate our passion for creating fired clay art. It's really a labor of love, full of expectations, surprises and sometimes frustration when things don't go the way we want, but I would not change it for anything in the world... we all, maybe painting but that's another story.
And with that in mind, I want to share the life and tribulations of my latest ceramic sculptures collection. We can always appreciate the beauty of the finished pieces, but there is a deep, complex story behind each piece that deserves to be told.
As always, everything starts with an idea. Sketches and daydreaming thanks a huge part of that process and then I turn to my raw clay to start creating. This beginning is a very delicate process, the pieces are pretty much as strong as a sandcastle and it working with them requires finesse, concentration and sheer amount of engineering and tinkering before the pieces begin to take form.
Each one of the pieces is an original artwork, with delicate sculpted forms and shapes that give every individual piece a personality. It can take a lot of time and patience to start adding the details to each, and everything is done by my not so steady hands.
sometimes I make the rough shape and then carve each detail using my tools, carefully removing clay from the fragile original shape. Sometimes I wet the clay, pinch it and shape it and hope that the material cooperates with my dreams. And then, when you are done shaping, pinching and carving, the piece must sit for days at a time in a special place where it can slowly get rid of the water, leaving you with a dry piece of dirt in the shape of your hopes and dreams.
And in that super fragile state, they must be carried in my hands to the kiln. And no matter how careful you are, the clay gods demand sacrifice and will conspire against you with too thin walls, heavy heads and other things that will crumble your piece as tribute.
Inside the kiln, they are heated to 1,000 C for their first trial by fire. and here, a battle between water and fire ensues. no matter how careful your drying process was, if water is trapped in your piece, they will battle and the steam will always win. An explosion will ensue inside the kiln where fragile pieces are trying to survive their first trip to hell and shrapnel will fly inside. People have lost entire batches because of an explosion, I was lucky, for every single piece but one was spared by the kiln gods.
The ones that endured, are now in a hard state that can be manipulated and they are ready to be painted and covered in glaze. It's glass, pigments and metal oxides that will react in the extreme environment of the second burn and will create exquisite swirls and patterns, bright colors and deep blacks.
But make a mistake by choosing too reactive combinations, or the wrong chemical reaction and disaster will await when you open the kiln 24 hours later.
And into the kiln they go again. This time they will be heated to more than 1,200 C, very slowly to give the chemical reactions time to do their magic. They will spend eight hours in an hellish environment, hotter than volcanic lava and full of reactive oxygen. If you did your alchemy right, all you can do now is hope, pray again to the kiln gods and wait for 24 hours for the kiln to cool down again so you can finally reap the results of your work.
Is it worth the wait? I really think so. even if the process from start to finish can take months for some of my pieces, it is definitively worth it. Seeing what I can create with my hands and offer them to you and to world in adoption fills me with joy.
There is an incredible amount of emotional and physical energy involved in this process. Someone told me that the universe is unavoidably moving towards chaos and disorder, and that the energy that I use with my hands, my clay and my kiln is the universe fighting back entropy. for one moment, the natural forces are channeled trough me to create order and beauty in a ceramic piece that will last pretty much forever if handled with love. As long as it's not shattered, it will stand the test of time and entropy.
I find this clash of science, mind and spirit incredibly poetic and beautiful, and makes me very proud and happy to be able to share it with you. I hope you enjoy this series of ceramic sculptures, and many more upcoming ceramics collections now that you know the involved process that comes with every piece.
Love,
Danita.