melissa shook
50 lbs of Clay
About 50 lbs of Clay
50 lbs. of Clay is a simple, elegant installation using both flat and wall surfaces. Each ceramic piece ranges from 3” to 6” and is fired with a wash of copper to give a sense of the organic – clots of fossilized material, bits of bone, maybe encrusted shells washed up on a beach. The formation should loosely create a flow from the least formed (or worked) pieces to the most resolved.
The 25 pounds of clay pieces on the wall plays with the idea that resolution descends from amorphousness by placing the least worked pieces (fossilized clods) at the top with the most clearly resolved pieces (resembling shells) at the bottom. It should be as wide as the flat section and of appropriate height. The pieces are hung on small nails.
The 25 pounds of clay pieces on the flat surface are divided into two sections.
The left grouping starts at the wall with a small mound of clots or clods that flow toward thirty or forty pieces that vaguely resemble the female figure. This progression alludes to the human body evolving from organic elements (fossilized bits dug/bred from fertile earth.)
The right grouping starts at the wall with ceramic pieces combining fossilized clods with hints of emerging shells and ends with the most clearly resolved shells.
The arrangement of these 25 pounds of clay should match the width of the wall piece. It might be three feet wide by two deep.