The images below are of ceramics I was making and selling before I started my masters in contemporary crafts. When I applied to the MA it was with the intention and wish to bring all these elements of practice, including my practice as a Yoga Teacher together. To develop a visual language that uses the qualities of porcelain to express concepts of a lived experience of yoga.
The images below are just a few from my masters research project, seeking to explore visual media as a vehicle to express my experience of reconnecting with self, materials and the world around me as a process of healing. The experience being supported and led by the science of yoga and joy of playing with clay.
Abstract from MA Report
Sa-ta-na-ma is a meditation on the cycles of life, a letting go of the old you to return to your true nature. My Masters project is a joining of my two practices and paths: ceramics and yoga. I combine practice and philosophy, using clay and its material properties, process, forms and outcomes as embodied metaphors. In body one Individual Consciousness I represent the individual’s path of balance and returning to one’s true-self and express this through thrown and trimmed porcelain; trimming used as an embodied metaphor for the undoing and letting go of learnt behaviours and responses. In body two Our Consciousness I represent the harmony, balance and connection between individual and universal consciousness and energy. All things are connected and work in relation to each other; this is expressed through combining thrown and trimmed ceramic forms (pods and circle/curved forms), finding their point of balance where they work in relationship, reliant on connection and interaction to maintain balance. (Most images below are credited to Oliver Cameron Swan)
Conclusion from MA Report
A coming together of ideas and practice, a joining a union – Yoga. Sa, ta, na, ma being the cycles of life, birth of new ideas, living, letting go and transformation. A continual cycle that you can chose to engage in, experience, learn from and encourage change or passively allow to happen. Yoga and making offer ways to experience and engage in these cycles in a positive way, in action. Ingold (2013, p. 93 -97) talks of the limitations of embodiment in artworks as - in making ‘an artwork’- ‘an object’ you are rendering inanimate the material and the idea. They become set and no longer able to be in action – action being part of being human – being embodied. Even in stillness the body is still breathing, functioning, in action. The outcomes of my Masters project being embodied metaphor; for growth, resilience, potential, revealing the positive aspects of your nature and the journey to achieve this and your place in the wholeness of things, I have tried to use porcelain’s properties to communicate this journey and concept. The limitation here, is to have strength and translucency the vessels need to be fired, become vitrified, fixed, inanimate – no longer in action. The action that Ingold speaks of as being embodied. My hope is these vessels, both body one and two, through their interaction with light, which will change depending upon their setting, the time of day, the viewer’s movement around the object, will this keep them alive, in action. Will the combined circle and pods stay in action, embodied by not being fixed together, by their combined force and energy needing to maintain balance, or by simply being able to be moved and find different points of stillness. Will the viewer, their reception, and perception of them, their response to them based on their lived experience keep the vessels embodied, in action, transforming. Perhaps transforming as the Babessi pots transform in meaning with what they are used for, rather than needing to physically be changed, Forni (2007). Or how Jack Doherty’s (2017) vessels stay in action with place, light and viewer. Using personification metaphor of pots instead of figures, I feel has been an important step in my work, offering a visual language that isn’t speaking of any social category specifically, and hopefully will be received that way. Will hopefully be accessible to most viewers “what is important about images is not simply the image itself, but how it is seen by particular spectators who look in particular ways.” Rose (2014, p.13) The whole process of the Masters project has been invaluable to me in my ceramics practice. It has encouraged me to and allowed me to engage with ceramics in a different way. Offering time and space to step back, observe, explore experiment in a way domestic ware doesn’t allow me to. To notice what engages my attention, draws my view and what doesn’t. It has enabled me to broaden my experience, knowledge and deepen my material understanding, my skills. Empowering me to engage more meaningfully with process and material, reigniting my joy in play, exploration, in making. It has brought change and transformation to my ceramics practice and is part of my personal journey, my growth.
Above are images of continuing development of my ceramics. refining and continuing to explore how porcelain can be used to express concepts through it's properties of strength, translucency and it's movement in drying and firing - working with it's tendency to warp. The last two images are of developing functional ware - Dharma, pots for use, table and home, that are in action, have purpose and through inclusions capture movement and process.
All images and photographs on this site remain the property of Mary Stephens or Oliver Cameron Swan.