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Leftover and Under is a collection of objects that synthesizes many years of work with scrap and leftover material together with a studio practice creating finely made sculptural and functional objects, primarily ceramic. As the years go by, the material as well as the tolerance for imperfection, becomes thinner and more translucent. In keeping with a passion for saving material and objects, all of the seconds from the limited production work are saved and hoarded in boxes and shelves in the studio. Leftover and Under is the answer to the question of how to transform the whole, and not so whole, parts of a ceramic studio practice. Surprisingly, ceramic is one of the few materials that can be completely recycle; however, in so doing one loses entirely the idea with which the objects were once imbued. To salvage and transform that meaning is the intent and challenge of this body of work.
Leftover and Under is an exploration in re-use of a series of thin (1/16”) handbuilt porcelain house forms that failed to meet an adequate standard. Initially, a cracked or deformed object is considered to be waste or refuse. If a cracked object then becomes broken, the crack is abolished and material for construction remains. If the de-formed loses its form at the insistent stroke of a hammer (a rubber mallet in this case) the resulting fragments become material. Windows are an element
of architecture supported by the structure and façade of a building. They shape a perspective of the world both literally and figuratively. In this work, the windows are transformed from void to be supported to that which supports. The material conspires to create a city.
This work in porcelain was preceded by many years of explorations with salvaged material. The Urban Altar is the object that bridged the transition to porcelain. The drawers are full of pocket sized objects collected and found over the years and displayed as artefacts of one person’s experience of the city. To explore porcelain was to embrace a material that carries no immediate history, allowing for a fresh exploration of form and language. Old habits die hard and Leftover and Under is the salvage and transformation of seven years of creating, collecting and transforming my own debris.