letting go, and why vessels are awesome.

It's wonderful to be able to make what you love. Period. It just is. But apparently there are problems too—like the separation anxiety I'm having as I send new pieces off to an exhibition or show, I'm finding it really hard to let go.

Chalice Series vessels, left to right: "Ich Dien (I Serve)", "Chalice #3", "Chalice #2 (Just Another Vessel". Handbuilt Southern Ice porcelain, underglaze, translucent glaze with encapsulated stains, ash glaze. Fired to cone 10 in oxidation. 2012.

Three of the new "Chalice Series" vessels I fired and glazed over New Year are now moving out into two summer shows: "Chalice #2, Just Another Vessel" will be part of the Alberta Craft Council summer exhibition "Shift. A Transformative State Of Mind" which opens July 14 in Edmonton; "Chalice #3" and "Ich Dien (I Serve)" will be available in Calgary at the Ruberto-Ostberg Gallery Show "Connections", opening this Friday June 15. These are handbuilt, labour-intensive pieces: they are slow art, inspired by ancient and ritualistic vessels—though the technology in that ultra-white porcelain, the fabulously stained glazes, and my computer-controlled kiln couldn't be more 21st century. I hope they find new homes because that will mean they have become meaningful to someone else.

We have a long history of needing and cherishing vessels, and I'm very happy to join the procession of potters, extending forward, who will continue to be inspired by the possibilities and provoked by the necessity of containing: food, flowers, ideas, love… Long live the vessel.

I remain mindful of a quote by the art historian and curator Edith Cargill:
“Show me someone who thinks the vessel is dead and right around coffee time I’ll show you a f###### hypocrite!”

P.S. As if by magic, or the Albert Craft Council newsletter, a link to a fabulous exhibition catalogue of ceramics for the table just appeared: "TableSpace" was presented at Alfred University in New York, Fall 2011. The introductory essay offers much to digest about the continued importance of functional ceramic vessels. And lots of really nice pictures. Congratulations to Alberta potter Sam Uhlick who was part of the show.

Comments

obsessing in public

obsessive chasing desire: the process in which the metal artist yields to their need to strike one piece of metal with carefully shaped tools for a very, very , long time. I will be doing a chasing metalwork demonstration at Bluerock Gallery in Black Diamond, Alberta, on Saturday December 5, 2015. I will have loads of samples - flat chased pictures, works in progress - and a very special holly sprig that I have been working on for over 90 hours… Look forward to seeing you there. “Run”. Brass portrait study. Chasing and repoussé. 14.5 x 9 x 3 cms. Christine Pedersen. 2014. ‘ Chasing ’ is the use of tools to create lines or texture marks on the surface of metal, it can be just like drawing. But the artwork can also be made into a three dimensional form by hitting and stretching the metal surface from behind—‘ repoussé ’—to sculpt relief, or volume, into the metal surface. The Statue of Liberty is probably the most famous repousséd object in the world - it’s also an awful l

hello you...

I always keep a piece from a new body of work: I need to spend time getting to know it. #15 “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow: Orange and Red Slurpee” pinched porcelain vase form. Height: 8 inches. Christine Pedersen. 2015. And so #15 stayed with us, and I schemed up a delightful challenge for myself: in the name of art—and pictures for my blog—I would fill it with flowers for every opportunity I could make up for a whole year. Sweet. First up: a lovely (and very modestly priced) bouquet from the supermarket for Christmas 2015. #15 “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow: Orange and Red Slurpee” pinched porcelain vase form. Seasonal flowers. Christine Pedersen. 2015. I always approach a vase thinking about the overall shape, as something to contemplate in my home, because most of the time it will probably stand empty. But as I make the piece, I end up imagining flowers and how they will fill it: how the stalks reach down to the bottom and push off at an angle; how wide a base nee

narrative jewellery: tales from the toolbox book launch

For every piece of jewellery I make there is a story. It can be simple, just a note on the “why?” that led to the forms and textures, or the feeling that I want to remember. Sometimes the single idea that could become a piece, conceived way before the act of making, can become so over-whelming that I need to write a whole new reality for the jewellery to exist within. That’s how it was for “Pull”, the first piece of jewellery in a body of work that became the ReFind Collection *. It caused me to look at materials in my home, especially the things that were routinely thrown away, very differently. It was like waking up to realize I just hadn’t been paying the right kind of attention to all the “stuff” in other areas of my life; realizing that maybe jewellery could be linked to something as obscure as industrial-scale food-processing and packaging—if I allowed my mind to receive the information, differently. I am very honoured that my necklace has been included in Mark Fenn’s new

metal is clay

Search This Blog