Sgraffito Tile

Artist Statement

This piece builds on ideas I have playing around with for a while, a leafed plant that is displayed horizontally in a rectangle, so that the leaves stretch to the edges, with little negative space. I find it satisfying to create two opposing triangles of leaves. In a work from freshman year, I experimented with trash in bubbles, and juxtaposing the natural world with human destruction is often a subject of my works. In this piece, the side of the kelp with the trash is withered, showing how pollution destroys nature. The side without the trash remains healthy, emphasizing the withered nature of the other leaves.

To make this piece, I first began by creating a slab. I used the slap technique, where clay is thrown onto the table repeatedly until it reaches a rollable thickness. I then rolled the slab out using a rolling pin and stick guides to create the desired thickness. Once the slab reached the leather-hard stage, I used underglaze V333 to coat it, giving it a nice avocado color once fired. After glazing, I used the sgraffito technique to accomplish the image seen above.

Overall, I think this is a weaker piece. The white of the bubbles and stem are too much, and command too much emphasis. Pure line work would have been better suited to sgraffito, as when fired ceramic becomes a commanding white color. I was also frustrated with the bits of glaze dust that got stuck in the lines that I drew. I felt as though the final product was messy and poorly executed. However, I was very happy with my idea, and I think that the composition, as a whole, is pretty strong. This is a piece I would like to re-make sometime in the future.

underglaze V333