Assembling

The boards

I had some issues when I ordered my wooden boards as they were too thin to hold the weight of my ceramic pieces. I also had to screw the French cleat first before I could assemble and the wood needed to be thick enough to hold the screws. I did some research and learnt that French cleats were the best style of fixing to hold up my pieces. Once I ordered the right thickness of wood I would layer some up by screwing them together and adding glue to get the thickness right.

French Cleat style fixings being attached after I researched that they were the best type to hold up this kind of work.

Deciding how to assemble

Next came laying out all my pieces and figuring out how I was going to lay them out. This took many tries and 100's of different combinations. But overall I decided to not fill in each board completely because it was getting overcrowded and I was losing the free movement I wanted to express in my work. By leaving space I am conveying the movement and how life is always flowing and moving. My life is still going and is everchanging to the blank spaces represent the room I have to grow.

I then needed to paint my boards white because I wanted my mandalas to blend in with the wall they were being displayed on.

The many trays of ceramic pieces I had

Here are some clips of me trying to figure out how to assemble

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When it came to arranging my pieces there were some that flowed really well together and there were some that didn't. This yellow, orange and pink one took so many tries before I was happy with it, it was definitely the hardest one and took me the most time to figure out.

I also had multiple versions of my largest piece, which was pretty tricky as it was such a large piece but I really felt happy with the last arrangement I did.

All of my work laid out on my kitchen table ready to be glued.

Once assembled and the glue having time to dry for a day I placed my pieces upright to check for any loose pieces. There were a few I had missed so i'm really glad I double checked it like this. My mum was so paranoid about this she made me put down a blanket and cushion encase they fell (spoiler they didn't).

Few shots of the first assembled pieces on my window with some previous work.

This piece I made was an experiment to making a reverse version of my other pieces. I paint on the colour on the background and leave the pieces white. It came out looking good, It gave me graphicy style feel but overall I didn't feel like it fit in with my other pieces so it won't be going up in the final display.

Layout

Figuring out the layout was something challenging. The photo above is my living room floor where I first began thinking out the layout. I didn't know exactly how most of my pieces were going to turn out until I put them together so the layout wasn't something I could really plan before. I had a rough layout based on the boards sizes but this changed once the pieces were put together. I first was assembling based on that first plan while trying to keep the pieces complimentary to each other. But the first layout wasn't flowing for me.

Coming in to the studio and having the space to really figure out the layout. After the failure of the first attempt I came into this knowing that I wanted the same colours to be next to each other so the pieces could flow together. I also wanted the the white spaces to flow together. With some advice from my peers I figured out a layout that flowed and I was happy with. Next came installation! Gwyn, our workshop tutor helped me put them up and it was really easy to install with the French cleats.

Reflection

I am so happy with how my exhibition looks, all the late nights, stress, firings, glazing, assembling was worth it. I am really proud of how they came out and really enjoyed the process of discovering a new realm in ceramics where I began breaking the rules and letting go.

There will always be things i'd have liked to change, there's some pieces I like more than others but collectively they work. There is so much meaning and love gone into these pieces and i'd happily make them again.

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