"What People See ..."

Doris Lessing writes in her preface to The Golden Notebook:
"... this novel continues to be, for its author, a most instructive experience. For instance. ... I can get, in one week, three letters about it, from three intelligent, well-informed, concerned people, ... ... one letter is entirely about the sex war, ... the writer (of the letter) has produced pages and pages all about nothing else, for she ... can't see anything else in the book.
The second is about politics, ... and he or she writes many pages about politics, and never mentions any other theme.
...
The third letter, ... is written by a man or a woman who can see nothing in it but the theme of mental illness.
But it is the same book. 
And naturally these incidents bring up again questions of what people see when they read a book, and why one person sees one pattern and nothing at all of another pattern, and how odd it is to have, as author, such a clear picture of a book, that is seen so very differently by its readers.
And from this kind of thought has emerged a new conclusion: which is that it is not only childish of a writer to want readers to see what he sees, to understand the shape and aim of a novel as he sees it - his wanting this means that he has not understood a most fundamental point. Which is that the book is alive and potent and fructifying and able to promote thought and discussion only when its plan and shape and intention are not understood, because that moment of seeing the shape and plan and intention is also the moment when there isn't anything more to be got out of it.
And when a book's pattern and the shape of its inner life is as plain to the reader as it is to the author - then perhaps it is time to throw the book aside, as having had its day, and start again on something new."

I find this question of 'why one person sees one pattern and nothing at all of another pattern' a fascinating one. I think one answer lies in that what people see in a book and, more applicably to this blog, in a work of art is defined by their own experiences; their own personal story, their past history, colours how they experience and perceive the present. 
Which means that the work of art is 'alive and potent and fructifying'.
And that is what excites me in my work: the object takes on a life and story of its own. The object becomes paramount once I have played my part in the first stage of its coming into existence. First there is the - all important - material, which I 'manipulate' (i.e. work by hand) over a period of time, which gives rise to/begets an object, which then continues its own journey without me, entering into contact with other people and constructing its own story.
I, the sculptor, am not the protagonist in the object's story; the object is.
In a world where objects now litter our lives and our living environments, where they are seemingly merely accumulated for the sake it, an object with importance, with its own significance and story, is a wondrous thing. The only kind I wish to have a part in.

I wrote about this in previous posts: 3/08/2012, 27/11/2012 and 18/10/2012.

The View Point Changes Everything

In a previous post (31 August last) about the white clay cylinders series, I talked about about the shift from 'my initial focus on the clay coil itself, on texture, on the outer shape the coil was forming, the size of the cylinder and its presence when grouped with the others', 'light and shade, placing in formation/groupings' to a consciousness of the inner space.
My latest firing produced another six beautiful cylinders, making a grouping of 13 in all. A sufficient number to start exploring the placing or grouping element of the series. 
First I've played around with changing the view point:
viewed at
1) normal eye level and lower down, just below normal eye level, the grouping is about
     a) outer shape

     b) texture

     c) light and shade

2) above normal eye level, the grouping becomes about
     a) inside space; the higher above eye level the more just about the inner space

I've also started to play around with changing the formation itself, the way the cylinders are arranged: 
1) in a random size-based arrangement, the grouping is about placement and negative space, i.e. the space in between the cylinders

2) in ascending/descending size-based order, the grouping becomes about height:

Further exploration to follow ... (what happens when they are placed in a circle or spiral formation; or in a linear formation => becomes about time [as per a previous post?, etc.)

I find great enjoyment, delight, in the power of repetition, in other words using the same basic element - here a white clay cylinder - and repeating it, you achieve something very different by the mere act of repetition/multiplication, something hugely powerful; and the more extensive the repetition, the more powerful the impact.
This is something the Japanese aesthetic understands and uses extremely well.

Another aspect of interest to me in this series is that these cylinders can be either decorative ceramics or ceramic sculpture/art. I want to explore the point at which a formation switches from being purely decorative to it being Art. By which I mean that if you place two or three cylinders together on a window-sill for instance, it can be a decorative object or feature in the home (decorative ceramics as opposed to functional/utilitarian ceramics, since these are certainly in no way 'vases' as they, purposely, are left open at the bottom). What are the changes that need to be made to make it an art installation? One single cylinder becomes art if/because the focus becomes directed towards the texture and light and shade, and similarly a grouping of a dozen. Further thoughts and discoveries to follow ...

Foldings - A Bit of an Explanation

Time, I feel, to explain my choice of the term 'Foldings'. The posts of 16/06/2014 entitled 'Foldings I' and 23/09/2014 'Foldings II) show images of such foldings.
  
As always, the OED is proving very useful. I'm listing the definitions that are applicable the Foldings series:

folding, vbl. n.1

 1. a.1.a The action of the vb. fold in its various senses; a doubling together, rolling up, etc.; the result of such action. spec. (see quot. 1874).

   b.1.b A clasping, an embrace. lit. and fig. Obs.

   c.1.c Geol. The doubling up of strata; the result of this.

2.2 

 a.2.a The point or region of folding; the bend or depression of a limb; a sinuous part or curve of a range of hills, the winding of a valley. Cf. fold n.3 1 c.

b.2.b A fold of a garment, etc., of flesh, skin, etc.; †a lock or plait of hair; †pl. the leaves of a folding-door; also, †a coil or wreath of flame.

Draft partial entry June 2002

 ▸ Molecular Biol. The process whereby a polypeptide or polynucleotide chain acquires a specific three-dimensional structure; the specific three-dimensional (secondary or tertiary) structure of a protein or nucleic acid molecule.

I'm including this last definition for 'the process whereby ... chain acquires' ==> it is a self-generated/generating process.

Foldings II

A second in the Foldings series; at 80cmx43cm it is about three times larger that the first (posted 16/06/2014). The aim is increasingly to allow the clay to show more of its inherent behaviour, in addition to continuing to play with the light and shade and the different gestures generated with the folding:

Another Addition

Another addition to the (horizontal) black and white form-finding series. This piece becoming relatively angular and raised on one side (2nd image) - the outer side when placed in formation. This means that as the gesture evolves across the three pieces, the mood shifts, the movement swells from gentle undulation in the black piece to a more vigorous flow in the third (white) piece. There are some interesting negative spaces, i.e. the spaces between the pieces, arising as well (best illustrated in the 5th and 7th [last] image): 

Time will tell whether the gesture and mood seek to continue to grow in this vein ... 

The Validity of Ancient Eastern Philosophy for Contemporary Society

An interesting, albeit somewhat heavy-going in places, talk by Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, giving an overview of the history of Japan through art. Of interest to me in that it is relevant to my work: more particularly, she talks about Gutai and Mono-Ha, both of which lay at the origin of a major shift in my approach and process (as per posts of Sept. 2011 onwards - questions and discussions spanning from 25/11/2011 to 24/09/2012; and more specifically, related to Gutai 21/08/2012 and Mono-ha 24/08/2012) and which continue to inspire and shape what I do.

Kataoka also talks interestingly about "the validity of ancient Eastern philosophy for contemporary society" - minutes 45.50-51.60. In particular the concept that Yin Yang should not be seen as duality but balance.
I also connect with what she says in relation to our connection with the universe.

Click to view:
Curator Mami Kataoka on Contemporary Art in Japan

About Time

In my fairly recent post of 06/08/2014 Edmund de Waal talks about repetition and time: "repetition is very interesting, is fascinating if you make things, if you’re a musician … as soon as you put one thing next to another you’ve got a gap, you’ve got a caesura, you’ve got a pause … something that happens between them … if you keep going then you have to deal with time."
This concept of time in what he makes puzzled me for a while; I couldn't immediately see where time comes into it, and could only see a relevance in that he is interested in poetry and his placings of his pots in lines are, as he says, like poems - poetry, like music, inherently involving time.

I then heard, a couple of weeks or so ago, on the radio a reading of Adam Thorpe's 'On Silbury Hill':
"... time ... not viewed ... as abstract ...
... Time was merely effect: a fading flower, the sun touching the hill, a distant memory, an accumulation of chalk. ...
... time was not ... measured precisely. ...
... time is not what my watch says ... but a distance, the long strides between myself as I stand here and the drumming. ..."

I think, for me, that goes some way towards explaining De Waal's statement.