The Enunciation
This piece was the real breakthrough after deciding that I wanted my niche in ceramics to be language.
The back story: Lark Books was publishing survey books of artists’ work in ceramics called 500 Cups or 500 Plates. I told my friends I was going to try to get into the up-coming 500 Pitchers.
My friends didn’t know about the Lark series and they thought I meant “500 Pictures.” When I got wind of this misunderstanding, I thought “That’s the piece!” So I had already made this double spouted pitcher. I put a picture of the pitcher on this little white vessel along with the phonetic spelling of picture and pitcher. ( The white vessel did make it into Lark Book’s 500 Pitchers.)
It took months for me to realize that the real piece was to combine the silhouette pitcher with the purple vessel that was it’s source. The title: “The Enunciation.”
And “The Enunciation” is a play on “The Annunciation” paintings from the middle ages and Renaissance. I always loved the relational, dance-like body postures in the Annunciation paintings. In this Fra Angelico painting, you can see the words coming out of the angel’s mouth, delivering the oxymoronic news: “You will be a pregnant virgin.”
From that piece to the present moment, I’ve done language oriented pieces whenever they occur for me. They are often about mis-communication. Next >