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February 2001

Volume 37 Number 2?

It's coming up to two years of retirement;
that is from teaching. Somehow the work
in the studio hasn't mushroomed as |
thought it might. It's probably because
now I'm only doing one joband not having
locram my studio work intoevenings and
weekends. | think | may last longer.

Although last August ]did manage amajor
show of new work, Reliquaries: the pre-
cious contained at the Gallery of BC Ce-
ramics, it seemed in spite of everything
else. We had three months down rebuild-
ing our kiln including anew shed and hoist
for loading the 20 [hb industrial kiln shelves.
a constant stream of visitors (perhaps it

KEITH RICE-JONES
LOOKING FORWARD WITH THE PAST

was the millennium) and | had a broken
hip. Much of my work hints at esoteric
rituals with diverse cultural references but
the new body of work I established last
year focused on a particular ritual function
- reliquanes, which are simply containers
for relics. The relics could relate to the
orginal medieval body parts of saints kept
and revered as holy objects or on a more
mundane bevel to objects holding a per-
sonal resonance of a special time or place.

Keith Rice- Jones
Celebraiarn 7000
oxided stoneware, gold justre:
h: 40.6, w: 24.8, d: 20.3 em
Photo: Ernest Neumann

Drawn by the inherent refer-
ences of my work, several
people have commissioned
specific reliquaries, These
range from a complex multi-
ple container for the remains
of some very special pets to a
celebratory reliquary allow
Ing Ongoing generations of a
family to include a deceased
in the family and remember
them on special occasions
Some people simply want to

be in charge of the ritual of their physical
passing and one such unusual request was
in the exhibition. A flyer wants his re-
mains in a ceramic glider to be dropped
from a plane tosmash and scatter his ashes
across a mountainside. Meanwhile he en-
joys a very personal piece of sculpture.

Less specific pieces are either more sym-
bolic such as Reliquary forthe Last Salmon
or more generalized as in Memory Vessels
that might contain objects of a highly
charged personal significance. These ob-
jects might not be precious in the monetary
sense, but the container emphasizes and
celebrates the personal connection,

People who know my work would recog-
nize familiar clements - the peaked forms.
based on the geometry of the Cheops pyra-
mid, and gold lustre contrasting with the
bare clay and the painted sticks. I work
mostly with quite suff slabs to build my
forms. The clay is either a grogged stone-
ware or grogged porcelain fired at cone 10,
some in our new 6) cubic ficar kiln. Some
of the pieces use word panels that are
carved, cast paper clay.

Currently I'm working on commissions
fortwo new reliquanes, a water feature for
anew bookstore and another for a pair of
fireplace columns. Unlike my usual work,
this latter commission is more figurative.
It is still architectural but I am capping the
work with the head of Anubis, the jackal
headed Egyptian god, and Horus, the fal-
con headed god. It's interesting how some-
times a commission will generate a whole
new starting point and direction.

See Looking page 4