I've brought my wheel to the studio to see how one process can feed into another. I spent a day experimenting with rolling canvas remnants into slabs of clay and then writing over them with a slip trailer and forming the slabs into simple vases and dishes. I enjoyed learning something new from each experiment that then led to the next. The difference between experimenting with clay as opposed to painting is that it can all be completely recycled over and over again. A painting has the problem of existing as an object. As my art practice is all about the process of becoming the painted object can sometimes become an obstacle that stops me in my tracks. This is why I abandoned painting in preference for allotment processes in 2006. However, I am now trying to find ways of painting that encourage a continuing process, such as integrating it into my allotment, which blurs it's purpose from purely aesthetic to also being functional in some way. When I studied studio ceramics (1979-1982) the emphasis was very strongly towards function. I was learning how to make domestic ware in the Leach tradition. Part way through the course I began to find the tradition constricting and I started experimenting with colour and form in a way that wasn't necessarily encouraged in that environment. However, I still seem to need to find value in the things I do in terms of usefulness and not purely aesthetics.
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Laura WildI am interested in things and processes that are often overlooked or spurned as irrelevant. In 2006 I began working an allotment in Derbyshire that became my field for research and working the ground has been important ever since. Archives
October 2019
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