Discovering Connections

After a couple years of making various ceramic items, hand-built and then wheel thrown, I was able to also look at my  fiber art more closely.  I realized that the connecting thread through my ceramics and fiber, and even my photography, was texture, spontaneity, and direct hand.

I once tried a mid-arm sewing machine.  I immediately rejected it for my practice. I have to feel the fabric in my hands as I sew. I have to have the flexibility to immediately and easily change my thread, stitch or idea! I have found the same to be true of ceramics. While learning to throw on a wheel is both challenging and rewarding, there is too much machine interference for my long-term liking. Again, I want the media to be molded solely by my hands and not with mechanics limitations.  

The textural quality of both mediums is paramount.  In fiber art,  the batting, the stitches (i.e. hand vs. machine or density) and the fiber (cloth, thread, yarn, etc) all determine the final textures. It is what drew me from straight photography surfaces into the realm of fiber art that is based on my photography. And so it is with clay. Your hands, rudimentary tools, or the type and consistency of the clay are the ceramic equivalents to the fiber choices.

It was when I stopped to look over a year's worth of ceramics and a several years long history of fiber art, that I truly realized that my "voice" has far less to  do with subject matter, color or functionality as it does the tactile quality and sensuousness of texture.

It is now with that very  pointed direction  that I return to  fiber and continue with ceramics.

Here are a few  pieces to show you various ceramic texture explorations.

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