Sunday, February 20, 2011

Materieal or Craft?

I've been thinking allot about the choice of materieal when making work and how that influences an artists course of study. I look at the sculpture grads and I see them dooing all of these materieal studies, experimenting with the nature of each medium. In ceramics I dont think we do that so much because clay is such a direct and integral part of how we define ourselves. If I had to place a lable on my art practices I would consider myself a sculptor, but I chose a material ie. Clay, and decided to use it to communicate my ideas, based on its properties. I am questioning the logic of the decision to find a material and develop your content through it, vs. experimenting with materials and letting the content come from them. Should one aim to establish content first and then find the appropriate material, or experiment with materials until they find content?
Posted by at

4 comments:

  1. heathFebruary 21, 2011 at 7:15 AM

    We're all drawn to mediums for different reasons. I'll admit that i fell in love with clay before i knew what i wanted to do with it. Jack of all trades, master of none. I think as we develop as artists we recognize the boundaries we set on ourselves, and either embrace them, or o away with them and create new ones. . boundaries/rules being i only work with clay. then you have a great concept and think "in order to fully express this new concept i need to change the rules, not JUST clay now" ad you bring in more materials!! I feel the intentions of an artist might come off as insincere if the concept of their work only comes from the medium, ie. "this string is cool . . . i wonder what i can make out of it, when i spray paint it it looks like spaghetti what concept goes with spaghetti?". I think that is stupid, personally. if all your doing is pushing a material to see what it can do, than it's a material study and no more than that, but it should be seen that way.

    ReplyDelete
  2. DericFebruary 22, 2011 at 8:38 AM

    I think it depends on the connection you have with the medium. In our seminar class we have a list of questions to think about, one of them asks. If your main medium magically disappeared would you be able to keep on as an artist? I would have to say no. if all clay disappeared I would not have the motivation to continue to make art.

    ReplyDelete
  3. gratiabFebruary 23, 2011 at 6:41 AM

    I made art before I worked in clay and I'm sure I will again. Sculpture class this semester has made me think a lot about clay as a material and why I work in clay. My pieces never seemed "done" until I started making pieces in clay. (contrary to what the class participants feel) I'm sure the finality of fired clay has a lot to do with this...

    ReplyDelete
  4. lcordellFebruary 28, 2011 at 5:56 AM

    Many artists like to think of themselves as non-material specific but few are. The push to find the best material for an idea can be never-ending. On the other hand- limiting yourself in order to master a material has it's own problems. Of course I would make work without clay but I sure would miss it.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)