Opening up 2/1/2020
Starting in the studio in 2020 with quick movements and worn textures. It feels so good to get back into playing with clay. The universal medium, the material that inscribed the epic of Gilgamesh and a toy for Rodin to cast his bronze creatures. Human's have always been drawn towards the trans-formative nature of clay.
And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul
Genesis 1 Line 7
We have always been driven to document ourselves from what we dig out from Earths shell. It's perhaps such a beautiful coincidence we live on a clay planet. Silicon Dioxide the bricks to Aluminium's mortar provides us with what we need for clay.
The top three elements in our Earth's crust are silicon, aluminium, and oxygen. The holy trinity to which water can be added to make a strong material whose grain unlike wood can be shifted, changed and altered at a whim. We often talk about how we are in the Goldilocks zone of solar system. A little further out we would have turned into cold husk delegated to the universe's freezer, a little closer we would of become a burnt snag of a planet, too inedible for life. What we often miss in these discussions is how we are in the Goldilocks zone for clay. Planets like mercury have a thick iron core wrapped in a thin silica sheet. Mercury's close proximity to the son drew it near to the heavier elements in our system and burdened it heart with a heavy center. Earth on the other hand has a small iron core, yet thick sheets of silicon making up the mantle and crust. Our proximity as the third planet gave us the perfect path to collect the clouds of silicon that helped birth our planet. Lighter than iron but heavier than oxygen we found our planet in a orbital valley of clay materials.
Since humans could dig we have scratched into the crust using the materials to document ourselves. These materials have dictated how we see ourselves and how we define what our society. When the ancient Mesopotamian's embraced agriculture, they showed their love in the forms of a female deity and they created those deities in clay! When the classical Athenian Andokides needed to document the history of his Gods he turned to clay. When the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huangs died he would share his tomb with the army of mercenaries and armed men who had preserved his power. These men were sculpted from clay and fired to cone 06 to preserve them for as long the emperor needed his terracotta warriors. We have forever and will always turn to clay as both a reflection and documentation of ourselves.
If Adam, created of the earth, was made in God's image then we clearly have a clay planet birthed of a clay God.
Since humans could dig we have scratched into the crust using the materials to document ourselves. These materials have dictated how we see ourselves and how we define what our society. When the ancient Mesopotamian's embraced agriculture, they showed their love in the forms of a female deity and they created those deities in clay! When the classical Athenian Andokides needed to document the history of his Gods he turned to clay. When the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huangs died he would share his tomb with the army of mercenaries and armed men who had preserved his power. These men were sculpted from clay and fired to cone 06 to preserve them for as long the emperor needed his terracotta warriors. We have forever and will always turn to clay as both a reflection and documentation of ourselves.
If Adam, created of the earth, was made in God's image then we clearly have a clay planet birthed of a clay God.
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