This week’s sherd is a video from the Jewish Museum in London, focusing on three ceramists at work: Antonia Salmon, Ray Silverman, and Janet Haig.
What you’ll see in this 14-minute video are three different approaches to creating ceramic work: press mold with Salmon; wheel throwing with Silverman; and coil/pinch pot making with Haig.
In all three approaches, attention to the vessel’s surface plays a significant role, revealing, concealing, or eschewing the artist’s mode of making. What I hope you’ll take away from watching this gem of a video is an appreciation for the number of methods out there for building not just form, but narrative possibilities.
Every mark, every curve, every undulation on your piece tells a story of its ontogenesis, of your relationship to the process and product, of your dance in time and space in relation to the form.
Auguste Elder
Also, integrating your strategies, from wheel to hand-building and everything between, ought to tease your imagination into a fevered pitch.
Enjoy this quiet film, and as always, throw well and prosper.