I have an emerging issue in that the work seems to be developing different threads, all interlinked and difficult to cover the considerations of the learning agreement without including what I am discovering about the other threads as they feed in and out of each other.
I) I have an enquiry about organic burnout within a clay body
II) I am following a path of discovery with regards to family and local histories and how that might relate to the work
III) I am learning about new methods of working ( I might have mentioned I am a painter not a potter)
IV) I am beginning to 'collect' as part of the work, something I have not done before.
V) I am starting to use new technological methods of documenting and promotion which I haven't done before.
So I had been thinking about suitable and meaningful organic matter to burn out and leave negative traces within the clay body. ( even the terminology lends itself to self portrait/ figurative ideas) I had to take a trip home to Derbyshire and this made me think about multi locational references within the sample. Or to think about multi locational columns in places which have a meaning for me. So obviously, I was born and grew up in Derbyshire and still have family there. There are other locations which I could also site these works. In terms of organic matter, from this trip I collected leaves which collect on my fathers grave every autumn. I collected plant material from my mothers home as I left to come home to Norfolk. I collected other significant material from places in the village from my childhood. All to be included in clay and be fired out to leave a negative space. This thinking quite obviously led me to consider the work of Racheal Whiteread and her work making negative spaces positve.
Taking into consideration the properties of clay work and its processes I need to consider how the core sample might fit together.
I am limited by:
Size of kiln- would need to be sectional
Weight- need to stack without damaging previous layers
Air being trapped- each section would explode in the kiln if too thick or contains air ( something to really consider when gasses are released from organic matter)
warping- clay can easily warp when fired , some shapes more than others. (important when thinking about constructing a column like core sample shape which should be uniform)
It must be stable ,safe and not sharp if placed in a public area, gallery or external.