I make to create a conversation between objects and people, to talk about the things that may be too gentle or rigid for words. My fascinations lay within the relationships between people and their homes. I also gravitate toward the little things that collect and emit of quiet bliss.

 

Physical and cognitive spatial awareness begins at birth. We learn the perimeters of our physical forms through experience. Infants will kick, grab and hold on to fragments of their limbs to gain understanding of their position in space.[1] Adults experience this cultivation similarly but in addition to a scaled down physical sense, they understand space in a social and emotional format. Language and communication are utilized to extend an antenna into a space before forming an impression or comfort level associated with an area. The phenomenology of a space and time spent immersed in it begins to build a foundation of meaning. A place is defined as a space with an increased sense of definition and meaning.[2] I can see every home I’ve lived in. As I spent time adhering myself to the frame and creating a permanent fixture, I memorized my surroundings studying the details of the fresh spaces in attempt to define them: home. Gaston Bachelard suggests a study of the phenomenology and the relationship between intimacy and space.[3] Through my body of work, I reconstruct objects belonging to domestic spaces, exploring the many relationships Bachelard articulates between intimacy, memory, identity, place and domesticity.

  

Ceramic is an attractive material because it articulates itself in various rhythms. Clay can be honest and humble, fragile or loud and quiet. It allows for cadency, movement and print.

 

My process coincides with the most basic form of intimacy and evolved from the most primitive form of making with clay, pinch. To communicate a deep sensation of relationship embedded within the work, I pinch from a ball of clay. I work with the mark of my hand to develop a language to speak to the viewer; this piece was made with thought, intention, and affection. I chose to begin pinching work, because it excerpts a necessary force of control and attention to each piece. By pinching, I am forced to work at a slow pace, thinking about each mark and how it affects the piece structurally, aesthetically and metaphorically. Each work gains definition and meaning, and becomes an individual entity and member in a family.

​

​

​

[1] Tuan, Yi-fu. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of

   Minnesota, 1977. Print.

[2] Seamon, David, and Jacob Sowers. "Place and Placelessness, Edward Relph." Key Texts in Human Geography. London: Sage, 2008. 43-51.    Print.

[3] Bachelard, Gaston, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print.

 

​