Between: clay

Showing posts with label clay. Show all posts

Sunday, 13 November 2022

Artlyst - A Question Of Clay: Strange Clay – Hayward Gallery

My latest exhibition review for A rtlyst is on Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art at Hayward Gallery:

‘Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in ceramics from artists and the public, from the popularity of The Great Pottery Throw Down to Theaster Gates’ The Question of Clay, a multi-institution project in 2021-22 across Whitechapel Gallery, Serpentine and the V&A that investigated the making, labour and production of clay, as well as its collecting history. Now, the Hayward Gallery gives us 23 international artists who stretch the medium itself, going beyond vessels into assemblage, sculpture and installation while examining the plasticity and possibilities of ceramics. As the exhibition’s curator, Dr Cliff Lauson, notes, by using “innovative methods and techniques”, these artists “push the medium to its physical and conceptual limits.”'

See also my November diary for Artlyst which covers Look and See, an exhibition by ceramicist Marta Jakobovits and also my review of Theaster Gates' A Clay Sermon at Whitechapel Gallery.

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -

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Bap Kennedy - Please Return To Jesus.

Sunday, 4 September 2022

Creative shaping and co-operation with God

Here's my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Catherine's Wickford:

I wonder how many of you have watched 'The Great Pottery Throw Down', a reality TV, Bake-Off style competition between potters to see who can perform the best in as many different styles of pottery as possible.

The show has had some great presenters who have been amusing, engaged and empathetic, the judges – rather than being catty and critical – are affirming – with expert ceramicist Keith Brymer Jones famously crying with pleasure whenever one of the competitors exceeds expectations. The competitors, as well as being talented potters, are always fascinating people with interesting back stories, but the ultimate star of the show, and the thing that keeps viewers tuning in, is the clay and the amazing range of artefacts that can be fashioned from it.

Clay that has been dampened and kneaded is a malleable, flexible substance that can be formed into elegant tall shapes, expansive wide forms, or moulded, pinched, cut and patted to form detailed figures or structures. It is only once the work of shaping and moulding is complete that it is fired to become hard and set in its final, finished form. Up until that point, however far the formation process has gone, it can always be returned to a lump or ball of clay and the process begun again.

That is what Jeremiah saw happening when God told him to go and view the local potter at work (Jeremiah 18: 1-11). What he saw was an initial attempt to form a pot that was unsuccessful. As a result, the potter ended his first attempt, returned the clay to its initial form and began the process again, creating a different pot from the same lump of clay.

In Jeremiah’s prophecy, the people of Israel are the clay and God is the potter shaping the people into the people of God. The people, like the clay, don’t always form in the way the potter intends and so, God returns the people to the beginning of the formation process and starts again, shaping them differently as a result of the flaw that developed and the change that resulted. The implication is that God works in a similar way in our lives and wants to do the same with us as a church and team, not just as individuals.

There are two key reflections that emerge from this image for us. Firstly, it is always possible for God to begin again with us. Second, we need to be as supple and flexible as possible in order that God can work as effectively with us as possible.

Jeremiah saw the vessel that the potter was making being spoiled in the potter’s hand, and him reworking it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. This was God’s way of showing us that it is always possible to begin again. Within all of our lives, we can go down tracks or paths in life that aren’t helpful to us and that ultimately do us harm as well as perhaps to others. We can easily think we are stuck in those ways of acting and behaving. This image or vision is God’s way of showing us that that isn’t so. There is always the opportunity for a fresh start and a new beginning. That is what Jesus offers to us through his death on the cross because there he shows us that there are no depths to which God will not go to draw us back to him and give us a new beginning. That’s what forgiveness is all about, turning around and starting again. Jesus, through his death on the cross, shows us that that opportunity is always there for us.

Kneading or wedging involves the potter in throwing the clay down and rolling it into a tight spiral before working the clay into a uniform mixture by pressing, folding, and stretching. This makes the clay more pliable, ensures a uniform consistency, and removes air pockets as well as small hard spots in the clay before you use or reuse the clay. Air added to clay bodies, can cause cracks and breaks when pots are fired in the kiln. Kneading or wedging is used to remove air from clay before it is used in hand building or wheel throwing.

Jeremiah’s image of the potter and the clay can appear to be one in which God is active and we are entirely passive. However, that is not how Jeremiah ends his reflection. He ends by calling on Israel to turn back to God. He is, therefore, looking for active co-operation with God from us. We are not inert like the clay and God can only do his creative shaping work in us, if we co-operate with him.

Unlike the inert clay, we can actively co-operate with God to enhance our flexibility and malleability by being open to change and development. Change is often what worries churches most and can be something that is resisted. For many the Church is the one unchanging element in their world and, as a result, change is resisted in order to provide the sense of security that people think they need in an ever-changing world. Yet, the reality is that change is natural and something that is always occurring throughout our lives. The cells in our bodies - trillions of them - are not all the exact same cells that we had yesterday; our body's cells are constantly replicating, creating their own replacements.

If change is natural and if change is God’s plan, then, like the clay becoming pliable enough to be shaped and moulded, we also need to develop a similar pliability in order that God can achieve a process of change in us. We can do this by pro-actively seeking change or by co-operating with change, rather than resisting it.

In 2006, the artist Theaster Gates made his home in a former confectionery store on South Dorchester Avenue in the heart of Greater Grand Crossing, one of Chicago’s most deprived areas. In 2009 he purchased the neighbouring building, which became known as the Archive House, home to 14,000 books from the former Prairie Avenue Bookshop. Reconstructed using discarded resources from across the city, it fulfils his Rebuild Foundation’s remit of regeneration via “individual empowerment and community engagement.” His most ambitious projects are those which use abandoned buildings in Chicago as sites of community transformation and gathering in a bid to reverse the trends of social and economic fragmentation in the city.

Before developing these projects, Gates was first a potter. He says: “Clay made me and is forever the root of my artistic interest.” Clay feels to him like “a philosophy,” as potters “learn how to shape the world.” He has then gone on to apply that philosophy more widely recognising that all his starting points for inspiration - blackness, clay, immateriality, and space – “are all launch pads that encourage advanced practice, reflection, trial, and iteration” and, as a result, he is constantly “practising acts of creation.” As someone who, as a youth, joined the New Cedar Grove Missionary Baptist Church choir, Gates sees this philosophy as one that connects with the Bible. The first words in his film called ‘A Clay Sermon’ are: “In the beginning, there was clay. Clay was without form.” This echo of the Book of Genesis comes at the beginning of a film that combines music, images, and words to paint a picture of the limitless potential of clay and working with clay.

Theaster Gates is, therefore, a contemporary example of what God is calling us to be through Jeremiah’s prophecy, a people who are open to change, pro-active about change, and creatively enabling change to occur in ways that reflect God’s kingdom and its values. That is what God is calling us to be and do in the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry, as that this the call that God is continually sharing with his people, just as was the case when he told Jeremiah to visit his local potter. We are more likely today to watch ‘The Great Pottery Throw Down’ that we are to visit a local potter. However, may we be inspired, as was Jeremiah, to see ourselves as a constantly evolving work of art and also to become those who initiate new projects that bring change within our communities, as Theaster Gates has done in his.

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Theaster Gates and the Black Monks of Mississippi.

Tuesday, 19 October 2021

Artlyst: Theaster Gates - Clay As A Profound Metaphor

My latest review for Artlyst is of Theaster Gates' 'A Clay Sermon' at the Whitechapel Gallery:

"In the beginning, there was clay. Clay was without form. Thus begins Theaster Gates’ ‘A Clay Sermon’, a film combining music, images, and words to paint a picture of the limitless potential of clay and working with Clay. No wonder the Judeo-Christian scriptures view clay as a profound metaphor for the relationship between a creative God and a co-creating humanity.

Gates’ exhibition combines history with art, religion and culture, the past with the present, that which is oppressive with that which is liberating, the improvisatory and the planned, chance and design; while using a huge diversity of media as artist, craftsperson, curator, designer, entrepreneur, historian, musician, priest/shaman, researcher, and social analyst. Featuring ceramic objects, sculptures, installations, film, and studio materials from the past two decades, this exhibition considers both the material and spiritual legacies of clay."

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Articles -

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Theaster Gates and the Black Monks of Mississippi Live Performance

Saturday, 6 January 2018

ArtWay Visual Meditation: Light in Clay Jars

In my latest Visual Meditation for ArtWay I reflect on Anna Sikorska's SALT installation, the culmination of the Light the Well community art project, which was recently at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

"The cracked translucent lanterns of this installation lit from within are a visible realisation of St Paul’s image of light in clay jars. By linking the lanterns together, this installation also highlights another aspect in 2 Corinthians 4. Paul writes that ‘We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.’ Paul writes of us in the plural. We are afflicted, but not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. It is as we come together to engage with affliction, perplexity, forsakenness and being struck down that we carry in our body the death of Jesus and show the life of Jesus. It is as we come together, linked, like the lanterns, by the light of Christ that we become the Body of Christ."

My other ArtWay meditations include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Antoni Gaudi, Maciej Hoffman, Giacomo Manzù, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Albert Servaes and Henry Sh elton.

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Mark Heard - Strong Hand Of Love.

Tuesday, 14 November 2017

Start:Stop - Light shines through lines of stress

Bible reading

For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4: 6-12)

Meditation

St Paul told the Christians in Corinth that they had the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in their hearts, but that this treasure was in clay jars, so that it might be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and did not come from them (2 Corinthians 4. 6 - 12). If the clay jar, the container of the light, were to be perfectly formed, then the light inside would not be seen from the outside. The light of Christ would effectively be hidden. People would look at our perfect life and not Christ, because they would only see us. Instead, St Paul says, because we are not perfect and have difficulties and flaws we are like cracked clay jars, meaning that it is then clear that where we act or speak with love and compassion, this is because of Christ in us, rather than being something which is innate to us or simply our decision alone. He used this image of light in containers seen through cracks, or thin translucent clay, to assure the Corinthian Christians that they had the light of God in their lives, despite the fallibility and frailty of those lives.

At St Martin-in-the-Fields, the artist Anna Sikorska is currently helping us reflect on these themes through ‘Light the Well’, a community art project which she has undertaken with the whole church community. The project has involved making porcelain lanterns (glazed ceramic globes). The size, surface decoration and character of each lantern differ, although the base material - and overall look - is consistent white ceramic, roughly made. The lanterns were made by laying strips of porcelain onto a round support. Once made, the lanterns were fired and are then suitable for being outside. They develop cracks in the firing, through which the light inside will also be seen. In the Light Well at St Martin’s these lanterns have been joined together with cord covering the stone floor in a random constellation. The cord also connects a light bulb within each lantern, so each one shines from within.

Porcelain, like all clay, is malleable when wet and able to be moulded and shaped but, once formed and fired, is firm but fragile at one and the same time. Porcelain, however, unlike most other clays, is also translucent meaning that light can be seen through it. It glows with a transparency individual to itself. All these aspects of porcelain are factors in these verses which say that ‘God … has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ and that ‘we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.’

These cracked translucent lanterns lit from within are a visible realisation of St Paul’s image of light in clay jars. By linking the lanterns together, this installation also highlights another aspect of this passage. Paul writes that ‘We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.’ Paul writes of us in the plural. We are afflicted, but not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. It is as we come together to engage with affliction, perplexity, forsakenness, and being struck down that we carry in our body the death of Jesus and show the life of Jesus. It is as we come together, linked, like the lanterns, by the light of Christ that we become the Body of Christ.

These verses picture us as fragile clay or porcelain containers. We all, as individuals, have the light of Christ within which can be seen by others as a result of our fragile nature; either the lines of stress in our lives or the thinness of our skin. Each of us are like cracked or translucent clay jars because of our flaws and vulnerabilities. It is through these lines of stress – the suffering, rejection and scorn with which we engage - that the light of Christ is seen. It is as we join together in living for the sake of others – linked together as the lanterns are linked in the Light the Well installation – that we become the Body of Christ and reveal him most fully in the world. In this way, this installation shows us what it means to be the Body of Christ – the Church – in the world today. When we come together as fragile individuals glowing with the light of Christ in and through our fallibilities, we are the Church as it is intended to be.

Prayers

Lord Jesus, in your face we see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Your light in our lives is like a flame inside a cracked clay jar, with your light seen through the lines of stress and tension that characterise our lives. As flawed people in a fragile world, we recognise that there is a crack in everything. We recognise, too, that it is through the cracks in our existence that your light gets in and shines out. We share in the vulnerability and suffering that was your experience of death in order that your life is also seen as being our strength in weakness. May we not be crushed, driven to despair, forsaken or destroyed, but in the stresses and tensions of our lives know your power loving and sustaining us. May we no longer strive after perfect offerings and pray instead that every heart to love will come, but as a refugee. Lord, in your strength and vulnerability, hear our prayer.

Lord Jesus, you are the light of the world and the light in our darkness. May your light be a flame to build warmth in our hearts towards family, neighbours and all those we meet. We place in your care all those we come to remember today. Give us, we pray, comfort in our anxiety and fear, courage and strength in our suffering, patience and compassion in our caring, consolation in our grieving. But above all, give us hope now and always. Lord, in your strength and vulnerability, hear our prayer.

Lord, may your light enlighten us in our decisions and be a fire to purify us from all pride and selfishness. Set our hearts on fire with love for you, so that we may love you with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength, and our neighbours as ourselves. So that by keeping your commandments we may glorify you, the giver of all good gifts. Lord, in your strength and vulnerability, hear our prayer.

Blessing

Enlightenment in our decisions, purification from pride and selfishness, strength in weakness, God’s power loving and sustaining us. May those blessings of almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

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Innocence Mission - Morning Star.

Friday, 22 July 2016

Light in Clay Jars

Here is my reflection for this week's Parish newsletter at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

The marvellous Parish Away Day, that many of us enjoyed recently, provided an opportunity to make porcelain lanterns as a meditative art activity. Our hope is that, at a later stage, these lanterns will be lit as part of an art installation providing an image of church as God intends it to be.

Porcelain, like all clay, is malleable when wet and able to be moulded and shaped but, once formed and fired, is firm but fragile at one and the same time. Porcelain, however, unlike most other clays, is also translucent meaning that light can be seen through it. All these aspects of porcelain are factors in verses found in 2 Corinthians 4 which says that ‘God … has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ and that ‘we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.’

These verses picture us as fragile clay or porcelain containers. We all, as individuals, have the light of Christ within which can be seen by others as a result of our fragile nature; either the lines of stress in our lives or the thinness of our skin. When we come together as fragile individuals glowing with the light of Christ in and through our fallibilities, we are the Church as it is intended to be.

It is our hope that we can at some time sign this to others by exhibiting our porcelain lanterns on a linked basis, with the links being a network of lights inside the lanterns. Thank you for helping begin to make that vision a reality and for reflecting on this church as a mixture of fragile clay and divine light.

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Michael Kiwanuka - One More Night.

Sunday, 10 July 2016

The Clay Hymnal and Clay Phoenix

The Clay Hymnal is a specially commissioned project by Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival on which Jim Causley collaborated with author Luke Thompson to make an album of poems by Cornish poet Jack Clemo as part his 2016 centenary celebrations. 'Clemo - a close friend of Charles Causley - was a fascinating poet who lived in the evocative Clay Country district of mid Cornwall and was greatly inspired by that dramatic, man-made landscape. Often described as angular, his poems couldn't be more different from that of his Launceston friend and that is paralleled in these new musical settings. Recorded in his home village, this project features some of the finest musicians in the Duchy and brings to life the clayscape world of Clemo.'

The CD was launched, in a concert by Jim and friends, alongside Luke Thompson’s biography of Clemo, Clay Phoenix, at the climax of this year’s Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival. 'Clay Phoenix is the first biography of Clemo, and it is the first study to draw from Clemo's extensive archives; an archive that includes sixty years of diaries, letters (including to and from Charles Causley, Cecil Day Lewis, Mary Whitehouse, AL Rowse, Frances Bellerby, TF Powys, George MacBeth and Sir Arthur Quiller Couch), manuscripts of every volume of Clemo’s work and a large photograph collection.'

'Jack Clemo (1916-94) was a strange feature of the twentieth century’s literary landscape. Deaf and blind for most of his adult life and raised in poverty at the foot of a waste dump in the china clay mining region of Cornwall, Clemo's experience of the world was harsh and imposing. Using his rural-industrial landscape as a symbol for his faith, sexuality and physical decline, Jack Clemo produced some of the most exciting, tense and vital poetry of the era.'

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Jim Causley - Angel Hill.