Visions In Clay 2019
Brian Molanphy
While the two traditional ceramic techniques employed in "trim" are each inextricably linked, as techniques, to one of two places—micaceous ceramics linked to New Mexico & marbled ceramics linked to Provence—the effects portray both landscapes, one just as well as the other. trim highlights the contrast, sometimes alchemical, between the transcendental aspirations of the blue & white tradition with the immediacy of gilded mud. trim exploits a double standard, suggesting the simultaneous distinction & indeterminacy of the visceral & the cerebral. To substitute an expansive rhetorical interiority for a restricted physical interiority is to represent the infinite instead of presenting a finite space. The ceramics in trim draw it in from without, less than they present it from within. These are formed from slabs & coils of a mica-rich clay dug in northern New Mexico, then slipped & burnished before firing.
Trim
Polished micaceous ware with blue & white marbled slip
7” x 5” x 5”
$500
2012