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No More Land West, a project by Visitor Welcome Center, at Arm Gallery
Mourning Ware (Funeral Fringe), 2020
ceramic; purchased clay embedded with found clay surfaced by drought in Niland CA, cut up discarded inner tube
dimensions 2 x 4 x 1 inches
The Mourning Ware ceramics highlight the need of many to grieve, and how imperative it is that we make connections between personal losses and our damaged planet. Typically the pieces are inflected with fragments of crushed dinnerware that I inherited from my parents after they passed away. As I work with this crushed porcelain, it becomes flecks of dust that are scattered, embedded, dispersed, and blown away. These material properties reflect the ways in which behavioral and psychological patterns are passed from one generation to the next. The fringe for Arm Gallery is embedded with clay that has been brought to the surface of the earth as a by-product of global warming. The exogenetic nature of Mourning Ware emphasizes how fired ceramic can easily move back into the geologic record, perhaps even by passing through our bodies as dust.