making clay slip (Unearthing project instructible)

allow plastic clay to completely dry - see previous post for making it

add water and soda ash and start stirring

sieve through fine mesh, add dispex and stir some more

slip made!

pour slip into casting mould

job done

... and fired - orange is the locally sourced London clay

making plastic clay (Unearthing project instructible)

collect clay - see previous post

grate the clay (or break lumps with hammer) & allow to dry

soak dried clay

sieve through fine mesh and spread on plaster bat

allow to dry overnight

plastic clay is now ready

remove from bat

allow plaster bat to dry out before reusing

mud to mud (Unearthing project / Walton-on-the-Naze)

I’ve started collecting London clay for Unearthing, a collaborative project with The People’s Bureau at Tate Modern and Stave Hill Ecological Park – see also previous posts.

A few months back we collected clay from the river bed near London Bridge. On this occaskion I collected some in a purer form on the beach at Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex. The Naze is a gorgeous and very unstable landscape, eroded by tidal waters which expose red crag and London clay, that is then reclaimed by the sea.

While collecting small lumps of clay strewn around the beach we came across bricks, yellow in colour, looking like traditional London brick. We also came across wall made from misshapen bricks, most probably rejects from a local brickery. The bricks were being washed out to sea, a 50+ million year old cycle was being looped - clay, shaped into bricks, fired, then becoming clay again... Ecology in action!

I walked back to the studio to process the clay and felt like a complete vandal when I started grating it in order to dry it. We soaked it, sieved it and dried it again, this time on a plaster bat to make plastic clay. 

Once the clay has been modelled, fired and pieces installed, I’ll simply have to walk back to the beach and throw the work in the water... I'm not one to get in the way of nature doing it's thing!

slippery foundations (Unearthing project / Nelson's Dock)

Unearthing, a project commissioned by Tate Exchange in partnership with The People’s Bureau and Stave Hill Ecological Park, involved a group of participants to walk from Stave Hill to the river. Our aim was to collect clay that would then be processed and modelled at Tate, then later pit-fired at the ecological park.

Instead of finding clay, we collected objects brought in and uncovered by recent tidal flows – metal objects used in ship building, bits of ceramic, slag from iron smelting on the river bank, general debris from London’s past colonial, trading and industrial history. A number of bricks, fired from the same clay we were looking for, were also found the river bed.

Objects were eventually used as inspiration and tools for modelling clay, later dug out from the park, that prompted also thoughts about their history, that of the city and the materials that built its foundations.

This was a focal point for discussions at Tate Modern, addressed within the context of regeneration and development at Elephant and Castle and London. 

More info on the project can be found on other posts on this blog as well as this and this link.

Score for Sittard / Cultuur maak(t) je

Score for Sittard, a piece commissioned by Joanna van der Zanden and artist Jeanne Van Heeswijk for Cultuur maak(t) je at Sittard’s new museum De Domijnen, in Dutch Limburg.

The piece started with a local group of ramblers collecting materials for make cords with which are pictured here installed in the museum. The making of these was done in formation leading to the cords being used as props to dance with and being tied into knots and plaited braids (the dance scores), before being untied again.

More info on the project is included in the following link.  

 

 

 

 

An Abecedary for Oya / Manufactum at CC de Ververij

Below is some copy which I wrote last month to accompany ‘An abecedary for Oya’, a series of works included in the current exhibition Manufactum at CC de Ververij in Ronse, curated by Jan Leconte and Chris Rotsaert.

For more info on the work and exhibition, see the links above or previous posts, or better still, go see the exhibition before the end of the month.

A for Anticipation and Artisanal

B for Baskets and Bonanzas

C for Cording and Coiling

An Abecedary for Oya

Earlier this year, artist Shane Waltener worked on Land of Plenty, a project commissioned by Rocsa. The collaborative project with the Oya group led to a number of objects being made, using locally sourced plant materials and yarns. They were exhibited at the end of the project at De Site in Ghent, where the plant materials were originally collected from.

The 26 composite pieces on display here include these original objects combined with others that inspired them or that were made in response to them. Also included with these are a number of Dailymades, selected from an ongoing series of works started by the artist in 2011.

By collaging and juxtaposing objects drawing on traditional crafts from all around the world and including techniques such as weaving, basketry and Oya crochet work, 'An Abedecary for Oya' questions where inspiration comes from and what objects communicate to us; can they contribute even to our sense of place and shift our understanding of our own social or cultural identity?

D for Darning and Dance

E for Exploring and Expanding

F for Feral and Foraging

G for Generous and Generative

H for Harvest and Hardiness