Artefact:Derelict

2022 - 2023

Portage 2022 Premier Award

and

This particular series was developed during a residency at Driving Creek Potteries in the Coromandel in 2022. I found a discarded gear alongside the rail tracks and I took it back to the studio with me. I began by making the gear in Corogold clay. The object’s form reminded me of diatoms and radiolarians but It’s solidity worried me so I began to strip the cog of its solid structure by incrementally reducing it to its supporting walls. It became a game to see how much of the object I could take away while still retaining its structural and aesthetic integrity. The final piece was so basic and so fragile I had to make it directly on the kiln shelf because it was too delicate to handle before bisquing.