Earth to Earth 2

My second attempt at this project after the previous Jar was taken from the top of Clegyr Boia. A new more remote location this time on top of Carn Treliwyd.

I have made a Jar from a blend of local clays, some from the moor below at Waun Llodi. This raw, unfired jar is to be left at the top of Carn Treliwyd to weather away. Made from the earth it will return to the earth. In my work I am inspired by landscape and I have placed this Jar to venerate its surrounding.

Over the next few weeks I will be documenting the disintegration of the Jar as the wind and rain slowly return the form to clay.

Who took my Moon Jar - Earth to Earth

I went at 6am this moring to document my new environmental art project Earth to Earth on Clegyr Boia, but the Jar had Vanished! Who would take a large heavy pot from the top of a hill? Did they think someone was out for a walk with a 20kg pot and just forgot it? Anyway its gone and I hope that whoever took it enjoys it for as long as it lasts...

Unfired Jar on Clegyr Boia - Earth to Earth

On Monday evening I placed an unfired terracotta Moon Jar on the top of Clegyr Boia. Because it has not been fired it is very fragile and susceptible to the weather. The concept is to leave it in situe until the forces of nature have reduced it back to its natural state, clay. I will be documenting its disintegration daily.

There are cycles within nature some quick others very slow and this art work I hope illustrates one cycle as a metaphor for all. from the earth and back to the earth. Also the placing of the jar in that particular location is important, it is a way of venerating a place of significance.

Clegyr Boia is a rocky outcrop rising from the coastal plateau to the west of St Davids. Excavations in the first half of the twentieth century confirmed occupation in the Neolithic and Iron Age periods. Dated Neolithic settlements in Wales are extremely rare, but the discovery of crude huts and Neolithic round-bottomed pottery confirms occupation of this rock 5-6,000 years ago. The name Clegyr Boia also associates this outcrop with the stronghold of a sixth-century AD Irish pirate named Boia, and the potential for post-Roman occupation here adds to the rarity and importance of this enduring settlement (RCAHMW, 91-cs-0258).Extract from: Driver, T. 2007. Pembrokeshire, Historic Landscapes from the Air, RCAHMW, page 98, Figure 148. See also Figure 63.T. Driver, 28 June 2007

The location has a long and deep historic and prehistoric significance. It is also the site of a healing spring and so has a spiritual element to it. Clegyr Boia has been of great importance to humans for a least 6000 years. For me personally the site has been the seen of the finale of one of my best childhood treasure hunts when trying to catch Boia (my father) and being attacked by his men with porridge pies. Later my friend Julian and I took our telescope and for the first time saw the rings of Saturn.

The final significance is the beauty of the surrondings. by placing the Moon Jar one imidiately draws attention to its location and its surroundings. This I find fasinating and it has been theoriesed that the placing of Neolithic megaliths was motivated by a desire to venerate natural places. Something I thing the artist Richard Long does brilliantly.

Searching for perfection

A pot inspired me. Amazed me, but I had got exited about objects and forms before. For some reason this simple form wouldn’t leave me alone or more to the point I can’t let it go. A spherical jar with an open rim and narrow foot ring is all it is; yet I have been making them for over three years. That may not sound a long time but it is virtually the only form I have concerned myself with since I saw my first Moon Jar in the V&A in 2004. Moon Jars are a Korean form from the Choson dynasty (1392-1910) originally made from plain white porcelain. At the time they represented the epitome of austere Confucian taste. The one I saw Bernard Leach had brought back from Seoul. Leach and his contemporaries in Japan admired it for its lack of self- consciousness, and the beauty of its slight imperfections. I was also struck by these qualities, its serenity and simplicity.

I see that I am unusual among potters, as I have no range, I make one form and that is all I do. Yet to my eye (and I am sure anyone who takes a moment to look) I never make the same form. This is neither deliberate nor accidental and that I find really interesting. I am in control of my skills, I know my form, how to make it, how to repeat it, yet I never do? A single pot inspired me and I have never tried to replicate it. I have always tried to capture its inspiring qualities and to capture its form. I think it is the form that enthrals me, makes me want to make another and another. Due to the making process and perhaps my immature skills I can make the shape proficiently but the subtleties of the form are beyond my complete control. I relish and nurture that lack of control, as I am certain I do not want to produce identical pots. But I do want the form to be perfect. I want perfection yet the form I am striving for is far from perfect. Paradoxical though it is, I think this is what fascinates me what drives me to continue.

I think that this is a part of a maker’s skilful journey, to start out with an intension and to strive to perfect that in a true form. For a long time I wanted to make them a perfect sphere. Pushing the belly further and further out to create a round jar. Eventually I realised I was going to far. They were losing their elegance. In my latest batch I have brought them right back in and the feel is very different, still the same components but a new form and a new presence. I ask myself if its boring making the same shape over and over but I have not once felt board nor have I lost interest in the seemingly infinite variety of a spherical jar.

Throwing Moon Jars

A Short film of me throwing Two Moon Jars.

Moon Jar