It is both alarming and satisfying to realise that I have been working at my MAFA for almost a year. As I sit in Durban, at my parents house for a break from the ‘maritzburg madness, I am trying to trace what I have achieved, in clay, in the last year. I began by pouring through my iPhoto albums – the best records of the visual are visual… Here are a few images of work – still in process in the studio or all finished and installed in galleries. I started my year in the studio, and this rather ill-kept blog, in February. At first I tried to carry on with the type of work I finished 2008 producing. I carried on with my thrown and wildly manipulated stoneware sculptures. I had been working in a self-conciously abstract way for about 6 months before I started my masters. I worked on some more figurative pieces using my combination of throwing-on-the-wheel-and-throwing-wet-pots-around-my-studio method. This is great fun and I just go through clay like water which drives my fellow postgrads crazy.
My references to cattle forms came and went during the year.
The cattle come
The cattle went away because I burnt their grass.
I participated in a number of shows including the “David Walters and Friends in Conversation with Gabisile Nkosi” at the Wiliam Humphrey’s Art Gallery in Kimberley and the UKZN Ceramics Department Alumnai exhibition at the Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg.
WHAG piece
We hosted a great African Ceramics Conference at our department in September which we all worked towards. Just before the conference we were treated to a workshop by Ian Garrett, the burnishing guru. Thanks Ian! It was fantastic – I rediscovered the pleasure of coil-building and finally learnt how to grog clay properly for handbuilding. I am surprised I got through 4 and a half years of art school without this basic skill!
All in all it has been a long, tiring year and I look forward to blogging more in 2010!
