Title
Creation Date
2015
Preview
Medium
cassius black, speckled buff, and BC6 white clay
Description
Dimensions: 5 x 4 inches (irregular, largest dimensions)
Technique: agateware
This piece is part of a larger work entitled Traces.
Rights
© Kayla Ruth Morgan, 2015. Photo Credit: Allison Corona.
Exhibit Images
Keywords
agateware, sculptural, memory, geology, gestural, organic
Artist Statement
I find interest in small details, and observing what remains of the evidence left behind. My work deals heavily with memory – which includes both place and time – and the traces with which we are left when a moment has passed.
Some of my best memories include walking along the beaches of the Southwestern coast of Florida picking up sharks’ teeth, sea glass, and stones with my grandfather. Other memories I hold dear include the times when we searched for garnet, agate, quartz, and petrified wood in the mountains of Idaho. From the time when I was very young, my grandfather taught me about the world by picking up what might otherwise be missed, stepped on, or destroyed. We would spend hours searching, wandering, and gathering these tiny treasures. We would leave the beach or mountains as the sun was setting with our spirits high and our pockets full.
I take advantage of the malleability of clay to explore surface and form based on these experiences. The vessels are hand-built using a range of colored clay bodies to resemble geological strata through agateware. The colored clays are wedged together, rolled out, and assembled based on linking the existing patterns produced by the clay and allowing the patterns to dictate the form of the piece. Once the clay is leather hard, I begin carving lines on the surface in order to bring out more striations of color and to manipulate the patterns. These layers symbolize the layers of time both geographically and personally within my mind.
This process allows me to indulge in the act of remembering these times with my grandfather as I carve away the layers of time and shape the clay just as these experiences have shaped me. I wonder if - just as stones carry the energy and influence of time – these vessels can portray the moments I had with my grandfather into something tangible.