COLUMBIA

The Dogged Process By Debra Sloan

She was seated on a velvet cushion
—my first attempt at making a life-sized dog
in clay. She was 32.5 cm high and weighed
in at about 13.5 kg, a veritable brick. There
are stress cracks throughout the body where
it had threatened to explode, and her little
ankles were bending under the weight of her
chest and head. It was 1976, and I was in the
process of teaching myself how to work in
clay. The Pug on Pillow was all about love, my
love for the pug, and my new love of clay. I
did not know how to make her, I only knew I

wanted to make her in clay.

Dog on Mat, by Debra Sloan.

Clay is a difficult material to master. It
demands that we work with grace. For the
purpose of this article, I wanted to walk
through that ‘valley of the shadow...’ where
virtuosity temps us to stray. It is a dangerous
but unavoidable walk for artists of the
traditional media when their chosen material
leads them through a maze of process. Philip
Rawson so neatly says, “Even though pottery
must be based on technology of some kind, it
is the good pottery that eludes the tyranny of
its technology.”

How often has one heard (usually during
question period after a lecture,) “Why do you
work in clay, anyway?” Where the clay artist
is obliged to defend his or her affinity for the
medium. The question implies that those who
work in clay are technicians first, and artists
second, that their attachment to the material

takes precedence. That being said, being moved

simply by the smell, or physical contact, or
a fascination with glazes, or the fire—these
attachments to all, or particular, ceramic
processes, are integral as to why the artist has
chosen clay. Nicholas Baurriaud says, making
art is “elaborating a form on the basis of raw
material.”? Artists using traditional media
have a commitment to their material, and a
part of their process is emotionally interactive.
‘There are many particulars of clay work, all
accompanied by physical requirements—
insistent subtexts that underpin the methods

used to support the central notion. Process

is immediately engaged, as in every manner

the clay is touched there is a significant effect
on what is being communicated. There are
physical, sensory, conceptual and historical
implications on whether the work is thrown,
coiled, slab built, cast or sculpted, electric
fired, wood, raku, or gas, slipped, painted, or
glazed—or not.

Clay artists have, arguably, the greatest
historical resources of any medium. Most
clay practices have an historic parallel, and
therefore a potential reference. Historical
reference also functions as a foil, like a Greek
chorus, motivating—or goading—the artist
with its running commentary. A ‘good piece
of pottery should not rely on the viewer being
privy to millennia of ceramic tradition, or
even cognisant of the contemporary response,
however, these allusions add a rich element
of insight for those who know and love the

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter - February 2009

ceramic practice. It is knowledge worth
having as it illustrates, from the beginning,
the human journey towards a civilised life.

Throughout what has now become a
composite interactive process; the conceptual
development, the making and experiencing
the effect of contact—the clay practice offers
time and again choice and chance. Although
this is common to all art practices, for the
clay artist there are so many transformative
stages in the process. The challenge, as we
toil, is to not stray into the ‘valley of the
shadow’...and fall victim to convention,
blind attachment or habit, but to remain
alive to those transformative events as they
appear out of the mud, or the brush or the
kiln. The material and the processes are ever
changing. The notion is the engine, and our
empathetic process is the fuel that keeps the
notion interactive.

Over the past 10 years, I] have made a
number of dog sculptures, each a result of
explorative and learning processes to support
what I wanted to convey. Each solution sug-
gests another method. Each method has its
own effect. In itself, this series of investigations
has been a process of personal, technical and
notional, evolution.

I started my clay practice as a potter, and
after the Pug on Pillow lesson, my early
sculptural pieces were disguised pots built
around a space. Though my methods have
evolved, the notion of the sculptures being
containers is irresistible as a metaphorical
connection to our own corporeal sentient state
—the walking, thinking, emoting containers
that we are,

Scale is another critical decision as it
impacts not only on the dynamic effect the
piece has on the viewer, and the amount of
space it absorbs, but scale also has a profound
impact on how the work will be made. The
process of building large-scale involves
acquiring strategies and skills to oppose clay’s
adversary—gravity. Moving the work to and
from the kilns in the fragile bone-dry stage is
another nightmare. These skills can become
vanity potholes, a temptation to do something
just because you can. However, there is also an
exciting dynamic to life-scale where the dog
image suggests the notion of shared space and
companionship.

After the Pug on Pillow, 1 did not return to

Contd on Page 5, Return to the Dogs