The OTHER Shannon Garson

There is another Shannon Garson. She is a vocalist and keyboard player for a gothic/electronic band called Butterfly Messiah. The other Shannon Garson is described as having a "Lush, ethereal voice" I am described as having the sort of voice that only my own children could listen to, and even then only before they can actually speak and tell me to shut up!

The existence of the other, lush and ethereally voiced Shannon Garson makes me wonder what I would do if I wasn't an artist. I've come to the conclusion that I might be either a midwife or a mushroom grower.



Both professions are quite scientific and involve looking at a set of circumstances, (human body, foetus, general health of mother, or soil, compost, spore etc) and moving around all the physical elements to create the most harmonius set of circumstances- a lovely baby and healthy mother or delicious gourmet mushrooms! This has certain similarities to creating pots.

So hail to all the other selves out there .....and to all the other real Shannon Garsons!

cracking up

Every time I think I have the perfect formula for being in control of my pots something happens that teaches me not to be so smart in thinking I can control nature. I recently felt that I'd like to throw my pots a bit thinner, just to prove that I could and push the boundaries of the porcelain. Well the porcelain showed me that the boundaries I was pushing were not all about me. I developed these strange cracks in the belly of the pots. At first I thought they must have been contamination in the clay that I had inadvertently wedged in as the clay was prepared but after being scrupulously clean the same thing happened again.



I rang The Clay Shed for advice (something I've done many times over the years) and the incomparable Jackie Gasson went on a detective hunt for me. Eventually Jackie found the reason for these horrible cracks. In throwing just that tiny fraction thinner I had created a strain in the bowl which was caused by the rim and weight of the body of the bowl pushing downwards when the porcelain softened n the firing. Wanting to just relax and flop outwards the bowl was held in by the force of the throwing and so the belly just slumped downward.... creating these pressure cracks. David used the analogy of pushing down really hard on a huge block of cheese, once there is no more give cracks in the surface appear.

It just shows me (once again) that ceramics is all about working with nature , not controlling it.

drawing

Drawing on the web is an interesting phenomenon. The combination of digital and traditional media can create a surprising and moving new way of experiencing drawing. I love this.

poetry/pottery

I'm in a book!

"Firing- philosophies within contemporary ceramic practice" by David Jones is a brilliant addition to ceramic and craft scholarship. What Jones has done with this book is to bring the technical aspects of firing ceramics into a wider discussion of philosophy history and the nexus where ceramics and contemporary art meet. "Firing" is a lavish production with 100's of full colour plates of contemporary ceramics from, tableware through to large scale sculptural works and kiln sculptures.

What I admire most about this book is the way Jones has linked firing ceramics, subject usually treated with dry, technical prose with the ingrained human need for fire. In this way "Firing" becomes a deeply poetic reflection on the metaphoric connections between fired ceramics and food, eating and living.

"Firing" begins with a quote from Milton's "Paradise Lost"
"yet from these flames
No light; but rather darkness visible."

And this sets the tone for a poetic , thoughtful and exciting discussion of the ramifications of fired ceramics and their place in the world of contemporary art. Jones examines many aspects of firing and his chapters include "Eating, Drinking , Cooking", "Distanced from Fire- Electric Kilns", "Firing as Metaphor", and "The Denial of Fire". I particularly loved his thoughts on porcelain ( no suprises there!)

"One of the magical paradoxical things about pottery and, for me porcelain is that it embodies a durability and contains echoes of its tremendous endurance while still being fragile- these images are contradictory, but contribute to the unconscious appeal of these objects."pp 71

This is just one example of the though-provoking concepts Jones deals with in this book.



Jones is a celebrated maker of Raku pots and his thoughts on Raku firing embody the joy in making and sense of humour that anyone who has ever met Jones knows so well. "In the 1960's and 1970's Raku stood as a freewheelin', improvisatory, jazzlike counterpoint to the austere and restrained palette of reduction fired stoneware."
pp. 53 I think it is essential for the sustainability of hand made ceramics that ceramicists and potters, and artists who work in clay (whichever you choose to call yourself!) engage with intellectual debate both within the art world and within society in general. "Firing" brings many strands of thought together creating an exciting dialogue which illuminates the way forward for artists of many genres.