Another Batch of Cartons

 

After several of my porcelain cartons came out broken, I decided to try earthenware instead, which should be stronger. Unfortunately it means there is a smaller range of glazes to choose from. The two more damaged looking cartons in this image are porcelain while the other three are earthenware, so you can see the difference it made to switch to the thicker clay as they came out of the mold much cleaner and didn't break from handling.

Here are the results of the three earthenware pieces - I think they look really good. I went with turquoise, matt black and antique green. I decided to use these colours after my previous lot where I thought the dove glaze was most effective, the cold tone reminded me of stone and the natural world. The turquoise one (left) has a beautiful gradient that reminds me of a clear shallow sea, an idealistic vision of what the world could look like without pollution and litter. It has a fluidity as the intense blue bleeds into the lighter tones. 

The middle one is much more assertive with the solid block of black cutting through the white body of the carton, but the matt texture gives it a kind of subdued look, that reminds me of my sea glass collection where the tumbled pieces of glass become cloudy and ethereal. The black dip also reminds me of oil which is a huge issue as tons of oil are constantly being spilled into the sea which is so infuriating and never seems to be treated with enough urgency, it makes me feel so upset that there are people out there just ruining the world for everyone else and we can't really do anything about it.  

Finally the antique green one, which is probably my favourite, also has a nice gradient of light to dark where the glaze has seemingly melted down towards the bottom. These areas of more intense glaze have golden patches, and paired with the green, it resembles oxidised copper creating an aged effect (probably explaining why it is called 'antique' green). I think this fits really well because it makes me think of the future of our architectural world when things start to rot and break down, and earlier on in the project I mentioned the idea of dystopia so it reaffirms those thoughts; it's interesting to imagine a future world where nature might start to creep back in and take over when human civilisation collapses, and I definitely believe in the resilience of nature so this is a real possibility. 

I noticed that the colours on this piece matched with one of Becky's prints so I'm looking forward to seeing our work exhibited together for the Structure exhibition at the Erewash Museum.

  


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