The beauty in imperfection, productive failures, disruption and happy accident. The gap between idealised perfection and reality, discovery and understanding. False trails and successful Plan Bs, Cs and Ds1 . Transformation – material/idea to form, 3D – 2D – 3D, interplay between mediums – object, image, text, poetry and fiction2 . Unexpected collisions – form, materials, ideas. Quick response vs intensive labour and technique. Concept vs intution and trust – the holding on and the letting go. 1Darwin, Newton, Kepler, Edison, Mondrian, Shakespeare, de Vinci, Bridget Riley. 2Martin Poppelwell, Berlinde De Bruyckere/J.M.Coetzee, Francis Upritchard/Hari Kunzru.
Cones. As a symbol for perspective – where the size, shape and meaning of forms changes with physical or mental view. Ring stands. Conic sections. Cones (3D) to planes and curves (2D). Pure abstractions (Apollonius, 200BCE) that describe the movement of every planet (Kepler, 1600s). The ellipse (falling short), parabola (meeting exactly), and hyperbola (exceeding). The empty focus or void which with the sun determines each elliptical orbit. Voids – black holes.
Circle – ideal form, centrifugal forces. Ellipse – squashed circle, planetary orbits. Parabola – thrown ball, stream of water from a fountain, arc of a rainbow, ability to focus light, sound, radio waves and structural efficiency in distributing weight. Hyperbola – interstellar spacecraft, comets, asteroids, catenary curves/hanging chains, sundial shadows, the ruffled edges of kale, lettuce, coral. Hyperbolic geometry helps explain the distortion of spacetime caused by massive objects – such as black holes.
Clay. Soft, changeable, responsive – holds the memory of touch. Not easily controlled by an amateur – highlighting the gap between vision and reality. Vessels created on the wheel spin around a central void. Rotating a curve to make a volume, instead of slicing a volume to find a curve. Vessels as carriers of narrative without beginning or end (Greek vases, Moche vessels, Marion McGuire, Grayson Perry). Creation stories – the source of life.
Application to new work. Leaping into the void from a conceptual starting point to define the final trajectory – to fall short, meet needs or exceed expectations. Clay brings life, wheel spinning (literally and metaphorically), and opportunities for transformation, interplay and narrative. An amateur seeking beauty in productive failures and imperfections.