Opening

Wet clay, cement. 3’x4’x4.’ 2016.

Opening is a mound of dark wet clay piled on a low cement plinth. The pile is covered with finger marks dragging up the side toward two large voids in the center. The voids have marks from knee joints and folds of skin, made from two legs, which were buried in the pile. The wet clay records the momentary struggle of a body working its way out.

The psychological pull of such a void is strong. A dark dampness, soft and yielding, yet a crushing weight, act alternately as a lure and a trap. An observer may empathize with the body that made the mark, and imagine their own touch, their own submergence and re-emergence. The sensual appeal of wet clay is the classic enticement for many ceramists: the push and pull of the body and material. Direct contact, clay moving and responding to touch; it is an ideal material to record footprints: records of action pressed into the earth. We can see ourselves in these marks. The symbolic power of burial and excavation of a body in earth addresses the central questions of life. How do we exist in this world, above the ground for a short time?