Working in Series
WORKING IN SERIES
Sometimes the creative juices are flowing, sometimes the need to explore different techniques is burning, and sometimes something is stuck and needs to be painted or worked out—working in series helps all these issues. My past ceramic practice required me to reproduce a design several times and to avoid the worst aspects of reproduction, that is, the copying of a design exactly. There is undoubtedly skill in throwing a small bowl on a potter’s wheel in a perfect run; however, if I wanted to reproduce a design endlessly then I would have used a clay slip in a plaster mold. Most people have mold-made ceramics in their homes in one form or another, from coffee cups to decorator items. This method has little appeal to me. I have hand-built all my creatures. Modern ideas of design allow for imperfect lines, layering, and the highlighting of a particular effect. Simplifying and exaggerating certain elements in a design will strengthen the overall design. A cat is a cat is a cat, is a tiger, is a lion, is a Siamese, is a Persian, is a symbol of a specified creature, as well as a whole lot of vagaries or whimsies. The idea of beauty baffles us and sometimes in all forms of art is rejected—supposedly—but it still manifests and underlines our appeal to an image or object. Rusty steel may be an anathema to the builder but has appeal to the artist. My creatures were often described as beautiful uglies which suggests something of the viewer while to me I was interested in the way I could push the medium to make a recognizable image. An art practice without play is deadly dull, while ideals of beauty are really not my business. I demand to create, that’s all.
I start with a drawing. In the attached gallery are other drawings from my yearly artist diaries displaying various cat designs, then the ceramic sculptures made from those designs, as well as a series of paintings of those cats. So a design creates a series not only of variations on a theme but also of methodology—a body of practices from drawing to two or three dimensional artworks. This applies to every type of creature I have made, but as a cat person they come first.
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- A page of cat designs
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- 32 x 23 x 18 cm fired clay.
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- Various sizes small.
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- Sitting cat design, adapted as whimsy took me to make various sizes.
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- Framed work on canvas 50 x 60 cm.
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- 2006 60 x 33 x 30 cm approx.
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- 2006 acrylic on canvas 50 x 60 cm.
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- 2001 Large ceramic cat 60 x 38 x 40 cm approx.
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- 2004 WOP A2 acrylic and ink on paper.
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- 2001- 2003 Works on Paper (WOP) A2 gouache, ink and acrylic
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- Work on paper A2 acrylic with pencil.
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- 2002 acrylic and oil on canvas 50 x 60 cm.