Hiding faces in plain sight

I started by sculpting faces. Faces have always been safe bedrock for me. Retreating into familiar settings I've ended up making dozens of clay busts. I love how hands can contort into scenes of action. I admire how flesh sculpted tense, can show a full body in movement. But there is something about faces, the windows of the soul, they have always draw me back in.

Humans, we are built to see and interpret faces. Our brains churn through huge amounts of raw data every time we interact with another person. The crease of a smile, the wrinkle of wincing eyes, we process these subtle physical adjustments into personal, deep emotions.  The innate sense to see a face and process meaning with such accuracy, is an ability I find astonishing. We read faces and faces say a lot. Maybe this is why we see them everywhere, in our art, in our clouds or in the moon's rocks, we see our expressions.

To experience pareidolia is to misinterpret sensory data to perceive a figure/form. Once thought to be a calling card for psychosis we now understand this behavior is a main stay of human nature.

The human brain is a black box of awe inspiring reactions. Understanding how this folded, wet muscle can operate at such a high level requires us to examines the folds of beings whose brain cannot operate at such a high level. Patient CK is the anonymous pseudonym given to a man whom had suffered a traumatic brain injury. Blunt force trauma from a motor-vehicle had altered his mind to where he could no longer recognize objects. His eyes could see them, but his brain could not process them. To CK the leg of a human was as mysterious as the legs of chair, things seen but not understood. In the processing factory of CK's brain there was one production line left in fully intact. CK could see faces. Not only see, but recognize, understand and relate. A man whom didn't know a cup of tea when it smack bang right in-front of his nose could see and understand a smug expression. When shown the uncanny paintings Giuseppe Arcimboldo, a painter whom loved to could construct human portraits out fruits and vegetables. CK could see a face, yet no fruit, he could see eyes and noses but not carrots and apples. Missing the forest for the trees, CK missed the fennel for the face.

Loaded into an MRI his brain sparkled whenever he was shown portraits. The fusiform gyrus a long segment stretching the undercarriage of the brain pulsed with energy. Our gyrus lights up too! We share the same lobes and abilities used to recognize faces that CK had.

Our skull is a highly competitive real-estate market. Grey and white matter has been pushed into high-density housing.  Sculpted and refined through evolutionary processes our brains have reluctantly given out zoning permits to only services deemed essential.  Alongside whether are fleeing or fighting, horny or hungry, the brain dedicates valuable space for us to recognize a friendly face.

Faces will always have a special place for me, both in my art and my temporal lobe.

Third Firing: Happy accidents

"We don't make mistakes -- we just have happy accidents."

Bob Ross


Here is it three firings, one pot. Bisque firing readies the form for glaze, while the stoneware firing readies the pot for its premier. Third firings are usually kept for specialties, gold lustres or printed decals, these firings show off fine skills and finer materials. My third firings though, my third firings are for fuck ups.


I remember throwing this pot. A large mountain of clay stood on my wheel, I had been yanking small cups off it all morning. I was getting to the end and the chawans were getting monotonous. Screw making a another tea set, lets make something big. I took that mass of clay and wrestled it into a form that I felt justified firing. A nice rounded, chubby pot. I scratched the slip with delicate, flowing patterns. From its dried state I sent the pot on its one way journey towards vitrification. With the pot freshly bisqued and its quartz inverted it was ready for glaze. I had a fine, respectable surface decoration, but how best to show it off?


This process took place during my start of third year Bachelors, I needed to experiment with multiple materials to get cool effects and good marks. Onto my pot I added a slop of cobalt carbonate, silicon carbide, and potash feldspar. Wiped away as to just cling to clay ridges the vessel I prayed that these little troughs of colour and texture would show of the pot's delicate form. Into a milk-thick clear glaze, I quickly dunked my vessel. Loaded into the kiln I dreamt of flowing patterns of a blue and reduced glaze. A perfect harmony between the clay and the glaze; this was never meant to be.

Silicon carbide holds onto its form until 1000 degrees Celsius, from here it suffers a violent onslaught from the properties of molten glaze. Pried apart by the liquid glass the compound releases a cloud of carbon monoxide. These clouds have often been used to the reproduce the effects of a gas kiln within a electric one.

Every pot taken from a glaze firing is an archive of chemical reactions, in my case ugly chemical reactions. The unfused silica in the potash feldspar and silicon carbide had clouded the otherwise clear glaze. Sure enough the silicon carbide has given off its noxious gas. This atmosphere would not produce carbon trapped black spots, which I like, but instead littered the pot with pinholes. These holes blemished my pot like acne scars. The finish was a mess. The delicate scratches I had made into the clay were gone forever, hidden beneath a thick shield of white glaze. I really didn't like it. It looked dirty, untidy. The blue didn't match the form. There remained a really unclear boundary between the interior and the exterior. From the finish to the texture everything looked muffled. Not subtle, muffled. Ah dang I thought. This pot is a symbol of my hubris. A prime example of why one should experiment with test tiles not full forms.

There's a funny thing with not caring about a pot anymore. It's liberating knowing your are free to try out new things without fear of making things worse. Ah fuck it, why not firing again. Chuck in back into the inferno. I reached into a bucket at the side of my desk, a white shino thick with a cellulose gum, and slapped the glaze onto the freshly fired pot. I didn't have time to care about using brushes, my hands will do. Running my fingers around the pot I reintroduced flowing grooves not in the clay but in the glaze. BACK YOU GO BUDDY. Into the kiln the pot was rudely fired for a third and final time.

From my most despised thrown piece to my favorite, I love this pot not just for its finish but for its story. It's the ugly duckling turned into the beautiful swan. I love how the shino floats atop a blue cobalt sea. I love how the glaze cracks under surface-tension. I love how the skin is smooth no longer blistered. Finally some balance between the form and surface.

The most fertile soil is that scorched by a destructive fire. A forest fire frees chemicals locked in place, allowing them to be absorbed and transformed into new ever more astonishing forms. A kiln firing frees the chemicals locked in a glaze, allowing them to be absorbed and transformed to smother an ever more beautiful form.








Special thanks to Janelle Low who took these stunning photographs


@janellelow_

http://www.janellelow.com/