fragments

10 Apr

i go on walks sometimes, but not the kind that need shoes. i move through a space in my mind and figures appear there. they don't seem aware of me looking at them. they are just there.

it reminded me of moments during ayahuasca ceremonies in brazil, when everything around me felt unusually present. i don't know how else to describe it.

one of those figures became the starting point for four works: emrys, pudor, terracotta fragment i, and terracotta fragment ii. all of them came from the same mould.

i worked on the oil-based clay for four to six weeks. chavant nsp, the kind that stays workable and lets me keep changing things. i wasn't making a portrait. i was trying to hold onto this particular figure: a reclining nude, head turned to one side, absorbed in itself. i modelled from the front only. the back was unnecessary.

when the figure felt right i made a plaster mould. i know my process well enough to work without undercuts, so it came out in one piece.

from that mould i made the first porcelain cast, taking it only from the head to the waist. i broke certain areas deliberately and reassembled them with new pieces added. that became emrys. it survived intact.

the second porcelain cast was the full figure. it survived the kiln, but not everything that came afterwards. over the following year, each move took something from it. pieces broke off gradually until it cracked in half. what remained eventually became too damaged to keep.

i have one photograph of it as it came out of the kiln. that is all that remains.

at some point i pulled just the pelvis section from the mould and began working on it separately. the mould was there, so i used it. i added cracks and built up new layers until it became something apart from the original figure. that piece survived. i called it pudor.

the terracotta cast came last. had i done it first i would have dirtied the mould and risked the porcelain pieces. i used a much thicker layer of clay and fired it separately. it came out intact, and then i left it alone for a long time.

when we moved to cyprus it came with us. i felt the bisque firing had left the surface too clean. there was a kleftiko oven in the garden and, after talking with lee-anne at the maker's space about smoke firing, i packed it with grasses, pine cones and citrus peel from the garden. looking back, the grass alone would probably have been enough. i didn't know that then.

at the first crack i was disappointed. by that point i had already lost a lot of work through firing and transport. when i opened the oven, the figure had broken into four pieces.

they were still too hot to touch, so i used a stick to move the ash away. that was when i first saw what the smoke had done to the surface. after washing the pieces the markings became clearer.

the smoke had darkened the face while leaving the nose and lips almost untouched. the closed eyes were darker too. i liked what had happened.

i waxed the pieces afterwards. the wax deepened the smoke marks and changed the surface again.

two fragments remain: terracotta fragment i, the face, and terracotta fragment ii, the pelvis.