In the spirit of revisiting older but still very relevant work, I’d like to take the time to showcase some of my series, this time the lichen series. Sometimes work comes and goes in the studio so quickly you don’t have much time to live with it, but these pieces have graced the shelves of the studio for a while and I’ve gotten to spend time thinking about them and why I’ve made them.
Secretly, I’m kind of happy that this piece hasn’t sold yet, I really love this guy and hope it goes to a good home someday! Its up on my studio wall, so I get to check it out all day while I’m working. It was kind of a spontaneous build, so the longer I live with it, the more I get to think about why I made it.
While I was working on it all of the parts were laying flat on the table and they had the appearance of slick whale bodies with crustaceans growing on their skin- it seemed very of the sea. But as soon as the pieces went on the wall the feel about them changed to growing plants or a forest of burnt trees that had died and new growth was taking over and hence how the lichen series was named. I also really love how activated all the spaces in-between each piece is. This series is a study in the balance of duality, the pieces play with ideas of death and regrowth, the power of negative space and the contrast of black and white. Each lichen growth is fused in place by the glazing process in the kiln. These pieces are hand-built from high fired stoneware and each piece is original and unique.
If you’d like to add pieces from lichen series to your collection, click for more information.
