divergentprbreckenridge

[divergentprbreckenridge]

Set up day

For the final piece that was to be in the exhibit, it was decided a small plinth would be best to aid the display as it gave me opportunity to have a surface to display the individual yet connected pieces on as well as having wall elements for the canvas'.

As a bonus, the overall result of display makes a connection to the external neolithic rock drawing class an accompanying Knowth research.

As the original rock drawings purpose was to act as a map showing the lay of the land, i feel the pieces could represent an individual area. The difference being that with the use of material coming from weathered rock that this "map" has transformed into a physical variant born of automatic approaches and way of mind. This also makes the research connect as it is natural primitive genes we all carry to want to act on instinct.

One important factor of the work generated for Divergent, was born of unplanned processes. i was able to keep authentic to using clay for automatism with keeping open to the laws of chance. This continued into the display.

Automatism was involved in everything. Atomised Divergence.

For the studio assessment i also kept to using a table prop.

the word "artefact" was mentioned and it struck a cord with me, i realised that not only was i using clay as my automatism implement, nut the research throughout the module had diverged me to look into the pre-historic period.

so i felt it appropriate to lay out my developmental samples like a museum would display its objects.

[divergentprbreckenridge]

Last Embellishing and sorting studio for assessment

Today was the final day for completing embellishments to allow materials to cure and harden if using resin.

Colour was experimented with, i found myself going for a warm palette as i found myself envisioning that the early world would be limited in colour due to the non existence of paint and the prehistoric peoples using what could be used as pigment or mark-making agents (animal blood, mud, sand, ground rocks, charcoal etc)

Green only came in as i found myself making the textured pieces represent the Knowth passage tombs in Ireland.

These pieces came from the original mark making drawings created from my online London drawing group class, i felt it would be more appropriate to use the primary material to transfer onto the porcelain as a way of connecting all research and external curricular activity together to contribute to the final work that will be in the interim exhibit.

The results were positively strong as the appeared fossilised and could look as if they were legitimate artifacts of the earlier world. Especially the piece with the line drawing, the faded areas suggested age and how carvings may not be as tangible presently but still hold an indexical mark of their existence.

Assemblage of the final work - 29th Jan

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Embellishing the Porcelain

As i liked the effects of ink dripped onto paper, i was curious of the results if it was dripped onto a wet form. However i did not like the effect the ink had on the clay as it did not perform as forgiving as the paper. instead it almost looks like something subjected to mold.

Despite the first try not going as well as i had thought, i felt the best way to get the effect of ink on wet surface was to transfer the original papers via pva onto the pieces.

Another way of attempting this was to draw into wet (coloured) pva as that also has a diverging nature as it dries.

i wanted some pieces to have colour, also i wanted a way of bringing in Knowth passage tombs as way of acknowledging research of the British rock carvings

[divergentprbreckenridge]

Screen Printing on the Air-Dries

Today was focussed on my air-dry forms as they required an extra step of being printed on and left to dry carefully before the clay becoming leather-hard to try and form.

There was not much flexibility in this clay as the porcelain generously offers, however it does serve a good purpose of being able to be printed on without requiring firing

[divergentprbreckenridge]

DRAWING NEOLITHIC ROCK ART (Online Via London Drawing Group)

As part of my own autonomous external research, i participated in another online class dedicated to my prehistoric focus - the intriguing twist being that it was about British prehistory (we always seem to think of European cave paintings at the mention of Prehistoric)

a recurring symbol to British Stone Art was the Ring and Cup Patterns/Forms. It was believed that some prehistoric people used these forms to draw maps and lays of the land on rocks, although today the serve as a more relic-like pattern.

Automatism was involved a lot tonight through "blind drawing" and allowing drawing ink allowing to make its own forms when dripped onto wet paper.

these practices would be considered as embellishments to my porcelain forms

Extra Research - Knowth passage tombs

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Hoping for this to be a final week of getting porcelain forms done, i concentrated more on applying decorative form and subtraction to lead to a more fossilised apperance.

The subtracted forms appear to associate with bones - another item associated with artifacts and pre-history. Provides variety of forms when it comes to assembling my final piece together.

UPDATE - 24th Jan

Unfortunately, due to it being inter-block week the kiln technicians are not available and turned out due to kiln space last week, only part of my porcelain was bisque fired. This could also be viewed as a welcome interference of The Laws of Chance, Diverting me to think on my feet when something was not possible. Also as a bonus: a new embellishment texture?

I did not allow this to deter me, i knew resin would allow my unbisqued pieces to stay intact and sealed. Also because i associated the forms with bones i mixed white paint into the resin mix.

[divergentprbreckenridge]

First week back was full steam ahead to get everything prepared and fired in good time for my final artefact.

Bringing everything together from my practices and research i allowed my hands to be the mould for my porcelain.

there was something about the hand that seems to be an important symbol/element that connects the working with clay to the pre-historic period where hands were the only tools.l

like when prepping my screen, i found myself to use whatever material and object that came to hand for applying texture

The "hand-forms" took well to the slump that helped to shape them, especially with the untextured one that carries the indexical appearance of the hand which acts as a symbol to mans first tools of creating visual communications (cave paintings)

the forms in the 2nd large pic appear to resemble shelter-like structures - resemblance of caves upon reflection. Possibly was in my own unconscious as the module work had diverted to prehistorical era.

These ones i think will be in the studio pin up as they are sligtly flawed with the cracks, they will also serve as testing palettes for when i experiment with surface decoration.

[divergentprbreckenridge]

Suspended Ceramics? (Post crit talk)

As feedback at the crits i was advised of bringing textiles as way of assemblage to my individual pieces in order to think of a final which could be a hung ceramic work. Additionally to this, i was encouraged to look at the prehistoric/primitive era as there is possibility Automatism originated from cave drawings. The link emerged from Abstract Expressionism when Pollock famously described his creative process as a "ritual" with him dancing around the canvas acting as a Shaman.

Primitive Research

For beginning context of the pre-historic times, 50 Art Ideas (Hodge, 2013) was good to start.

Art was the first to exist before writing - was the only way of communication, the earliest art was from the Stone Age (15-10,000 BC)

Cave walls were scratched and painted on with what came to hand in that time, twigs, hands and fingers, fur scraps from animal hunting, rocks and stones, etc. Popular images that emerged were handprints, patterns, animals and scenes of hunting and tribal activity. This art was created mostly for rituals

The primitive peoples made paints and pigments from powder substances - Charcoal and chalks were mixed with animal fats to create paint. This was considered as the first ever oil paint.

The first considered form of pre-historic sculpture was carved rocks and stones, ivory and carved clay. Stones held a high significance of that period as they were thought to be solid vessels holding spirits, memories and healing quality.

Hodge, S. (2013). 50 Art Ideas You Really Need to Know. Quercus.

Lagana's paper Dadaism, Surrealism and the Unconscious (2014) offers connection with primitive era as it may have emerged hidden in sight within Dadaism.

Due to Dadaist practice of acting on instinct and making "anti-art" with what they had around them connects to the efficiency to the pre-historic people. Jean Arp is used as an example with his elementary use and assemblages of cloth, wood and paper.

It is also worth to note that the primitive era was entirely different to todays time - specifically mannerisms and how we conduct ourselves. Back then, there was no repressions of thoughts or feelings with a high freedom to act (uncivilised as it may also be called. As the world evolved, so did rules about social behaviour. This also welcomes in Freuds id, ego and super-ego theory. We are all born with the primitive gene to want to act and do as we please but social conventions has placed preventions on what would be considered as anti-social behaviour"

Surrealism - Joan Miro was fascinated by art made by children as he believed they were made from "innocent freedom" - the connects to the impulses inherited by our primitive ancestors, and also we lose that childhood innocence as we reach adolescence and then adult hood where we know we are expected to behave according to social conventions.

Lagana, L. (2014). Dadaism, Surrealism and the Unconscious. Symposia Melitensia No. 9, University of Malta, ISBN: 1812-7509. [online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/6926606/Dadaism_Surrealism_and_the_Unconscious [Accessed 12 Dec. 2023].

Louise Bourgeois

The title of the book being called Suspension is what piqued my starting point to look into ways of suspending my ceramic pieces. As a bonus, Bourgeois is a relevant artist to psychoanalysis and the unconscious. and her works are informed by Surrealism.

Lair, 1962, Bronze Painted White

looks very similar to my resin glazed porcelain. except, it looks as if a rod of clay would rise and twist to make a sculptural and formed automatic drawing

Fée Couturière, 1963, Bronze Painted White

More relatable to my porcelain forms. Although i feel this is more freely formed for the recesses to evolve where and when they please. This opens up suggestion or opportunity for something to emerge?

Bourgeois, L. and Pincus-Witten, R. (2014). Louise Bourgeois - Suspension. Milano: Skira.

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The idea was brought up of screen-printing onto clay. Given how this would be hard to do with porcelain as;

a) i wont be able to screen print onto form

b) i the paint would likely burn off during the firing.

so for this, i made a brief return to air-dry clay (purchased in a grey stone colour to match past research and connections to pre-historic periods)

Begining with my own screen, i tried to get into that mind of being a cave-person and using what i had to hand (as well as my hands) to make marks dipped in drawing ink to make marks on my screen before coating over with screenblock.

the small difference made from my usual screen prep process was i did not give the block its full time to dry - which resulted in this faded, cave-painting like image. this felt like an achievement as i had managed to create a merging of cave-person mannerisms in creation with automatism.

i mostly tested them on mock canvases to see how they would print before committing to air-dry samples. i had purposely pre-painted the canvases brown and applied by palette knife to achieve an artefact sampling of a cave wall which worked well with the patterns of the screen-print

the printed airdry clay appeared to have an abstract-prehistoric appearance. Now beginning to consider if it should be a mix pf porcelain and printed air-dry in my final Divergent work

[divergentprbreckenridge]

Revisiting the resin cast air dries

after last weeks result, i wanted to re-attempt using clay again as resin casting moulds.

for the coloured one i used a dark blue as it would give a good chance of altering the terracotta coloured clay.

although it did not completely dye the clay, it did still produce a speckled effect.

just now a case of allowing them to adopt the shape they are in before adding the resin. i will be using colourless resin for the coloured clay to see how well colour transfer is, i will use coloured for the cling film lined form.

Dec 8th - Results and thoughts.

Lining the interior with cling film proved to have a positive casting result as the clay was easy to break off and reclaim, the ability to peel off the film proved to be a big help with this too!

more time in warm water is needed for the other model, there is little chance of all the clay managing to come off as some is completely fused to the resin. plus, clay is wasted as it is left in waster to dissolve. However, lining the models with film does open the opportunity of having resin versions of the forms - as a bonus, less clay going to waste as it can be reclaimed.

[divergentprbreckenridge]

Bone China Paper Dips

for introduction of another method that is open to chance, i revisited the bone China dipping technique from 3rd year that was favoured. forms similar to what i had made previously in the paper clay materialised but i think this is good to compare between the behaviours of the materials when these are fired.

whilst dipping the paper into the china i did feel a sense of absentmindedness wave over me, all i knew was that i was ensuring the papers were receiving a generous coating, then allowed them to take their own shape as they were placed onto my wooden surface.

truly an activity of automatism and chance occurred with this. makes me all the more inquisitive as to what the post fired results will be.

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Reassessing the clay mould resin attempts

the casts have worked up to a point. they have took the shape, but what must be concerned is how much of the clay will be lost due to being fused to the resin.

however when they are dried, interesting textures are introduced from clay being transferred to the resin showing within the red clay which is making me think back to colour and if the colours of the clay can be manipulated.

i am now thinking of trying more of these, some lined with cling film to that there is only the resin casting with no clay excess, and more with the clay acting as mould but using acrylic to dye and colour the clay

[divergentprbreckenridge]

Airdry clay

To compare between the clays i am using, i attempted my free-forms with my airdry. they do seem to process and form the same, i would say the only difference is the colours of the clays i had been using lately.

i have had experience of reclaiming airdry clay i wanted to see if i could push a boundary of pouring resin into the recess. the clay should be able to wash away from the cured cast.

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Receiving my second Porcelain Firings

could be safe to say that i enjoy porcelain Paperclay, especially post-bisque firing showing its perfect white which also poses as an organically shaped canvas.

it takes imprints clearly and crisp as well as keeping to from from when being modelled and crafted.

i feel more opportunity is available in this type of clay whereas with earthen ware and stone there had been restrictions.

[divergentprbreckenridge]

More Porcelain Play

after the 1st success of the paper clay and how i feel i can have free expression whilst working with it, i wanted to explore more capabilities to start gaining ideas for when the time comes to planning a final piece

i extruded to play with automatic chance drawing, contorted forms to play with how fast the clay holds position, made allowance for other material to be introduced via piercing and inlayed

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After comparing the two polar differences of my decorated peices i wanted to try a 3rd approch which blended the approach of transfer to have a shiny (almost visceral) finish.

from experimenting this process with another module, i revisited it for purposes of a new decorative technique. a thin surface of pva with chalk grinded in and automatically drawn with inks. this was left to dry overnight to form a "skin"

after peeling off the skin, the porcelain piece was coated with more pva before applying the skin.

The finish was amazingly close to the aim, the surface was shiny and there was an extra application of a 3D element from the colours and how they blended after reactivation of the pva.

this is a technique to be kept as it was created from automatism, but laws of chance had a final say in the definitive appearance of the skin, and how it would further evolve whilst curing on the porcelain piece.

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I only decided to use 2 of the firings to experiment with surface texture. 1st one was a pva glue image transfer (inspired by the previous image of Lhotka's work) of a kept printout.

This did transform the clean white of the porcelain to something representing an artefact to have a raw-mineral appearance. i am reminded of texts when i was researching about automatism in my 3rd year, specifically about the relation of automatism and chance has to the primitive ages. think this would provide some contextual reading.

The 2nd one I had mixed up coloured resin and dripped over another in the same approach used by Pollock.

i found myself to be drawn to my resin coated piece, although i had adopted the same techniques used by pollock, i feel i have gave it a renewal with the use of resin and a form instead of a flat surface, allowing chance to decide how the resin pools in each recess.

its allowed to have its own viscerality, without need to relate to the body or organs.

i like to think i created a type of visceral allowing to be almost delicious appearing.