Finding similarities in processes in art production or other activities, that then feed into the context of a work.
Nash excavates trees by means of a ‘WOOD QUARRY’. His chosen term indicates the sheer physical effort of working with a whole tree, as well as finding a suitable tree to work with, not killing it for the purpose of art; like finding rare deposits of a precious metal.
His main tools are a chainsaw and an axe to carve the wood, and fire to char it.
Artistic process that is in itself deeply collaborative – between the artist, his material, and the natural world.
His work is mainly site specific, or situated outdoors. Rather than static sculpture, a lot of his pieces are either growing, are exposed to the elements or experimentally interact with the environment. They become independed from the creator or a gallery as they wonder across the rivers and the world.
As David Nash I aspire to work with a chosen material collaboratively. I use the garden to inspire my processes, and ideas about space and life.
I admire his playfulness not only with shaping the material, but also with natural processes, presenting wood in different contexts, such as wondering boulder or precarious towering structure.
Progress of the 4 weeks, working on the Tea for Two project, illustrated through photographs.
Stitching number of pieces of fabric to create moulds for the parts of tea set.
Filling the fabric moulds with plaster to create number of plaster prototypes.
These then can be used to create plaster moulds for casting with slip.
More plaster shapes and components.
Plaster saucers.
Used fabric moulds dipped in black slip and fired. This method is actually much faster and simpler than making plaster moulds, with better, undisturbed detail. More experimental shapes are possible, just less functional.
Slip-casted and fired cups.
Fired slipware, some of them glazed, with oxide wash and transparent glaze, or other.
Learning the technique of digital decal transfer, so we can apply designs onto a plain IKEA tableware, which could be then exhibited at their Cardiff store.
Finished application of my bacteria decals.
Beginning with an introduction into decals and on-glaze paints and their application, I started to think about what sort of designs I could apply on the already glazed tableware from IKEA, and any limitations awaiting.
Decals are a ceramic glaze printed on a decal (sticky) paper. It reacts with the already fired glaze underneath, at 850 °C, burning away the film that the glaze is printed on. Because of the extra layer that burns away, decal designs shouldn’t overlap as the top layer wouldn’t adhere to the surface.
Any white areas on the designs are printed as transparent, so any background colour would affect the final result. That’s why I chose just white ware for the simplicity, and one light colour, burned orange bowl, to see the effect anyway.
The shape of the wares need to be considered when wanting to apply larger designs, thinking about the curves and edges. A flat pattern of the ware would needed to be created; very time consuming and tricky process, for the rather short project.
This fact clashed with my initial idea of using images from the slide collection in our library and covering almost entire surface of the tableware.
Images of Cardiff from the slide collectionScan of a slide showing construction in Cardiff.
Construction in Cardiff, image taken from the slide collection in Cardiff Metropolitan Library in LLandaff Campus
I managed to find a few interesting slides of construction work or architectural drawings of buildings in Cardiff, visually close to Bechers’ images.
These images were useful to learn and experiment on while undergoing Adobe Photoshop induction.
2 of my attempts at playing with Photoshop. Looking at just the supporting structure elements which would look good as a pattern over the whole ware.
As a back up plan, I decided to use an image making technique I played with earlier.
Using slabs of clay as stamps with texture and pattern inscribed onto them and then painted with ordinary acrylicpaint;that way I could create a smaller designs which could be scanned and then applied onto ceramic ware. Because of the natural and fluid character of the technique, I went for a design of a different kind of an architecture; juxtaposed to the large nature of industrial functional building, to the micro functional structure of cells and bacteria. Inscribing into the slabs of clay feature such as ribosomes, circular DNA, cell walls or cytoplasm.
The prints were a success with its colourful looks in slightly off/burned hue which was caused by the tone of the clay, highlighting the universe of small parts/factories within the walls of bacteria or cells.
Happy with the designs, I have created the specific sheet in Photoshop that needs to be send to digitalceramics.com.
However, a problem with an extraordinary high cost and delivery charge occurred, for just one sheet of A3 decal paper.
We had to get organised as a group and split the delivery charge and the sheets to make the cost more bearable.
I ended up arranging different sizes of my scanned print designs to fit as many as possible on an A4 sheet of decal paper. I decided to add at least one image from the slide collection; planning to cut it up and use elements of it.
Prepared with the wares and my printed transfers I started to investigate how should I apply it best.
As the set looks better stacked up as a one bigger structure, rather than spread out on a table; I decided to apply one of the largest print so it would run across different pieces when stacked on each other.
The smaller elements were trickier to organise.
However, smearing some paint on my fingertips and handling a mug pretending to drink from it, I could see where are the points of contact with the body, giving chance for bacteria to travel from hand onto the mug or vice versa.
On to these places I would then apply my smallest transfers, highlighting the most contaminated places of the object.
With this placement I wanted to explore some ideas I’m investigating in the main body of my work: how an idea/impression of a structure/object has an impact after they disappear.
How the remaining debris can have an effect on future, or the present.
As for the image taken from the slide collection; I used an architectural drawing of proposed Cardiff Bay Opera House, due to it’s coffee like colour and almost abstract design. I cut the decal print into few basic components which I then applied on a cup and saucer. Looking more at the shapes and angles they create on the cup, enhancing the abstractness of the image as well as disunion between plans and reality.
There was a problem of creasing when trying to apply the decal through edges. I have carefully pressed it and created as little ridges as possible, but I’m intrigued how the overlapping folds will turn out after firing .
Ceramic Líška 