Why make marks 3. Nature is Imperfect.

This is the last instalment of why I make marks, before I move on to other areas of interest.

 In the natural world there is no judgement, just beauty.  The lopsided growth of a tree, the flower with a petal blown away, the distorted leaf on the tree, are all beautiful in their own right, despite not being perfect. They are expressions of the beauty of natural variation which of course we know is so fundamental to life on this planet as we adapt to changes in our environment. This is a draw for me. Imperfection, impermanence, non-judgement are all ideas that I would like to express through my pottery.

 I use sticks that I have foraged from either my garden or around me in the Kent countryside to mark the wet clay that I have just thrown on the wheel. I really like this idea; of truly bringing nature into the surface of the pot to increase the connection between the pot and the natural world around me. It also means that the connection between the person who uses the pot can, through having a relationship with the pottery, connect with the natural world and the emotional resonance that the natural world evokes in them.

 The  consequence of running your fingers over the surface that has been marked is that an additional sense is engaged. Think of the experience of drinking a cup of tea (it could coffee, but I am rather obsessed with tea and cake). This is a daily ritual for many of us. But if we are holding a handmade and delicately marked mug with an unglazed base and all of the marks of the making process touchable, then we can not only engage our senses of taste and sight, also we also engage our sense of touch as we hold the handle of the mug, and touch its’ sides. If we know the meanings of these marks, we might also think of the countryside and plants which inspired it, and feel some hint of this inspiration ourselves. These experiences are sensory, without verbal thought. Indeed, our experience of drinking the tea might even be hindered by reason¹.  

 Further, I find that I really enjoy the experience of confidence that comes through making, and I find it rather exhilarating when I alter the pot I have just made through marking it. In creating a mark (and in fact, in creating a pot from start to finish), I am challenged to be certain, to use my tools with confidence and be assured in what I do, creating what I intended, which is at the least, pleasing to the eye and at best, a thing of beauty. For me, this is quite a task as really I am asking myself to find beauty out of nothing, a piece of mud.

 Looking at nature and imperfection in craft has been a theme for the longest time, and across cultures. In the UK, the Arts and Crafts movement was, in part, a reaction to the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries and tapped into the desire to value craft, rather than mass production where things were made identical and ‘perfect’, to exact specifications using machinery. And in the present day we are reacting to the Digital Revolution and what that means for us as users of ‘things’ in our homes.

¹              I enjoyed a lecture by Julian Stair entitled ‘Material, Agency and Embodiment; pottery in the 21st century’ recently at the Royal College of Art, organised by The Crafts Study Centre. He talked about sensory perception as being central to experience, but prior to, and removed from language.