Medium: local Washington, DC clay; Rhizopus mould; bell jar

Year: 2008

Description: Locate. ||||| I am continually negotiating with perspective; I want to capture a feeling of being at once infinitely large and infinitely small. (This reference to size may be about physical size, but can also include my position in time.) ||||| When challenged with making a work for this ceramic-specific exhibition, I set out for my studio with a microscope and a telescope under my arm. I intended to design a new performance, but this work resulted and continues to captivate me. ||||| I have reached deep into the history of this material, researching and reproducing Late Bronze Age artifacts. These are vessels with powerful symbolism; they point to the integral roles both clay and ceramic had in the rise of civilization. ||||| Simultaneously, the use of native clay in an intimate investigation of the material itself relocates these ancient forms in time and place. Mould growth reveals the living qualities of the material, definitively placing it into today’s context. ||||| The resulting work grapples for a position of simultaneity, inclusive of the universal and the local, reconciling the vast and the miniscule.