While I was exploring the area around Prospect Creek, I noticed how the water flowed quickly in some areas and stilled to a reflective mirror in others. My video footage of these moments captures a particular sense of time and place. When projected into an object, this audio visual recalls the original ewer's journey down the creek, submerged and full of water. However the situation is inverted as the replica contains the creek, rather than the creek holding the ewer. Ruptures in the centre of the object allow water imagery to escape, much as the pouring of physical water caused the clay surface to dissolve and break when the replica was made in my studio.
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| Kath Fries, Decant - work in progress, 2014, ceramic and video |
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| Kath Fries, Decant - work in progress, 2013, ceramic and video |
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| Kath Fries, Decant - work in progress, 2014, ceramic and video |
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| Kath Fries, Decant - work in progress, 2013, ceramic and video |
Although it may not be immediately apparent that the original ewers and their replicas are special or precious, there is something about cherished handmade everyday objects that inspires storytelling. To me, these ewers have an almost magical allure of intrigue and narrative, they contain histories and personal experiences which cannot be recalled or accessed. Projecting the creek into the hollow centres of the objects recreates the essence of the only section of the ewers story that is recorded, their discovery on the banks of Prospect Creek in 1985. But the initial stages of their journey, daily use and the conversations that occurred around them, can only be conjured through individual speculation and imagination. "Even when we don't actually know the stories, we frequently think of objects as repositories of narration. And we are likely to account for our 'things' by telling stories about them. Stories form contexts within which craft objects resonate with meaning." (Sue Rowley, There Once Lived… craft and narrative traditions, Craft and Contemporary Theory, 1997, p81)
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| Kath Fries, Decant - work in progress, 2014, video still |
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| Kath Fries, Decant - work in progress, 2014, video still |
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| Kath Fries, Decant - work in progress, 2014, video still |
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| Kath Fries, Decant - work in progress, 2014, video still |
This is the sixth in a series of blog posts from my FCMG studio.
I would like to thank Fairfield City Museum and Gallery for this commission and the opportunity of being their first artist-in-residence. The work resulting from my residency will be exhibited in a solo exhibition, 'Decant', in the Stein Gallery at Fairfield City Museum and Gallery (cnr The Horsely Dr and Oxford St, Smithfield NSW 2164), 22 February - 12 April 2014. Opening night: Wednesday 26 February, 6.30-8.30pm
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