From the ridiculous to the sublime I work on the wheel.
An experience initially so like sticking your hand up a cows bottom, but also, by contrast to this vulgarity,
a transportation that results in finding yourself playing a rhapsody on a finely tuned instrument.
The origin of the work goes back to the making of Eucharistic Chalices – very impractical ones.
The clay was torn so that reference was made to the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine in one ceramic piece. Those pieces also gave some effect of movement and stillness and this referred to where the Holy Spirit could be found, not in the earthquake or the fire, but in the still small voice and the wind of Pentecost.
The imagery of earthquake wind and fire is ever present with me when I work with clay. When I throw, the clay is a chaotic whirlwind which properly controlled becomes a wall of nothingness surrounding a still and silent centre. The resultant work then goes through the earthquake, wind and fire that can be found in the atmosphere of a kiln and the refining change that entails.
The work has since moved on – the chalices have become vases and the tearing has become cutting, although I intend to return to tearing in the future, ideas take a long time to work through and each piece is very time and labour intensive. My output is correspondingly small.
I make use of a sketch pad every day and draw from life as often as I can, I find more and more that I make reference to my drawings when executing work.
PAM DODDS © 2006
 Burst Out and Who is it you say that I am |
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 Like a Piece of the Sky |
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 Selection of work |
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porcelain
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