Having spent a lot of time on beaches and in the mountains, I have had plenty of opportunity to get close up and intimate with rocks that have been eroded by water (waves and waterfalls). I wanted to create a ceramic sculpture based on this erosion of rock, especially the hollows in rock which are formed when a stone is swirled around by the water; my starting point for this project was the following sketches.
As with most of my ceramic work, I made the piece at home and then took it to college to use the kiln; always a risky business as clay is most fragile in 'greenware'. When driving to college with this large piece (securely wrapped in bubblewrap) in the boot of my car, I was forced to do an emergency stop when someone stepped in front of the car. I successfully avoided hitting the pedestrian, but heard an ominous thump from the boot! On arriving at college, I found that the piece had managed to fall over and the top section was completely shattered. Fortunately the majority of the piece was intact, so with the use of file and sandpaper I smoothed off the broken edges and painted the interior with black slip before putting my modified design in for firing, here is the result.
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| Rock Form (1) with sea-glass (~32cm) |
If I am totally honest, I think the piece looks better in its modified form.
One lesson learned from this experience is to transport my work with its centre of gravity at its lowest point.
I have made two more smaller pieces also based on rock forms.
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| Rock Form (2) with sea-glass (~25cm) |
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| Group of Rock Forms |
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