Over Perfection

 

All artists know the pain of Over Perfection. An over complication of the composition, one layer of varnish too much, or a simple little touch-up that turns into a Mr Bean level fuck-up; we’ve all been there. 

The Potter's Wheel will laugh at you and throw your mistakes back into your face. Overworked pottery will eventually collapse, the thinness of the walls will tear itself apart between the spinning tension of the wheel head and your clasping hands holding onto the rim of the pot. Here I start and finish with a bowl, what is seen in between is a series of chaotic structures. Each time I recentre the collapsed walls of my failed creations more clay is lost and more air bubbles are introduced. It's a process that only gets worse till eventually you are left with the last remaining grams of uncorrupted clay. And with that small morsel of pure clay you will indeed create something, but that something is far more inconsequential than any of the grand forms you could have settled for. It’s your own hubris and ego that has landed you right here. From an empire of dirt to your tiny finishing bowl you realise what your dreams and desires have pushed you to destroy. You realise how the preconceived wishes in your own mind had obliterated the beauty of the art that had laid in front of you. 

Sometimes you will ride the line right up to the edge. Sometimes you will find that blissful balance between design and outcomes, balance and chaos. Sometimes though you will ride right past that line and straight off into the cliff face chasm of overcorrecting overperfections. This work is about the latter not the former, it's about when you go too far not when you don't get far enough, it's about Over Perfection.