My architectural background, which is structured by two main forces, influences my work as a ceramic artist: gravity and tension. The progression of my experimentation with porcelain and textile forms has led me through forms created purely with gravity, to a combination of gravity and tensile pulls. Resisting the gravity gives lightness, and searching for the place where gravity is least in our gravity filled cosmos is the Apogeum: the point in the orbit of the moon at which it is furthest form the earth. The Apogeum is also the highest point in the development; the climax or culmination. The Apogeum is my inspiration for my new work.
My wall hanging porcelain Apogeums are formed form the natural forces upon smooth textile. I build a framework suspending a stretched tensile construction. This is filled with fluid porcelain penetrating into the textile leaving a layer of porcelain sediment. After the thin porcelain form is released, each piece of work a new tensile structure has to be made. Each form captures the natural forces of gravity (in the weight of the fluid porcelain) and tension (in the pull that I construct in the tensile fabric form) in a natural continuous curvature. After sanding the bisque smooth, I apply glazes that cover only a portion of the form leaving a linear boundary where the smooth raw porcelain can be seen, as if a shadow is cast. The highest point in the form acts as a sundial where it shadow indicates the time of day.
Fired at 1255o C, special attention is given to reduce the stresses on the structure Capturing the memory of the textile in a natural form, the composition of my installation refers to the starry night where the invisible gravity is shaping the orbits. I have discovered new possibilities of structural lightness furthest from the pull of gravity: the Apogeum.