“Thinking Big, Making Small” – The Journal

“Thinking Big, Making Small” – The Journal

The Following are notes, reflections and descriptive thoughts of the work currently being undertaken during my undergraduate studies.

“Thinking Big, Making Small”

Having experimented with the black clay, I found that it lent itself well to subtle texture. I used laser cut templates of the London Skyline I had designed the previous year to mark a graphic and faintly recognisable image into the clay when in a leather hard state. I then carved away between the outline and began adding texture to the areas either side by pressing firmly in to the leather hard clay with a small wooden tool. The clay was then once fired to 1260*C which gives the ceramic pieces a matt finish with a colour of darkest brown/black, highlighting the fine grit like pieces of textured grog within the clay. It was always the intention of the pieces to have an engineered quality to them reflecting the nature of the world we live today, a semi-organic, semi-engineered environment. The brick saw allowed the fired ceramics to be sliced with a 4mm wide gap which works with the scale and form of the sculptural test pieces. The pieces were made from an extruded prism which had a hollow cylindrical centre within, this in turn being sliced 3 ways (after the texturing). Although relatively small in size, measuring approx 20cm high, the black matt colour, together with the subtle texture of the material gives a monumental appearance to the pieces with the soft contrasting of natural light and shadow cast upon.