Sunday 18 November 2007

"there's a crack...."



People are always amazed at the loss rate of work in the ceramic process. "Why don't you make it out of something else?" they wonder. Me too! I'm forever wrestling with the vagaries of process and perhaps that is the point.I like the way the different aspects of making invade the work. It's not a question of relying on serendipity (the happy accident) but of the work extending itself somehow.Recently I made some large swallows based on the ones from the Willow Pattern. The cracks which appeared in the finished pieces were stupendous and said more about process and materiality than I ever could. In the immortal words of Leonard Cohen,
"there's a crack, a crack in everything,thats where the light gets in."