Now what? WTF am I even supposed to do with this stuff these days; does any thing actually matter any more? Sure, probably more so than ever! Get it? Things? Matter? Anyways...
I’ve been asking myself for a long time why I constantly feel compelled to make with my hands in clay in today’s internet based everything life. It seems so ironic, messy and stupid to me. It’s frustrating and exciting at the same time. Every time I open up a bag of fresh clay or scrape some out of the pug mill I become excited for the possibilities that the malleable material suggests. Now I know that may be due to some prolonged exposure to clay and the ceramic process. It’s ingrained in my psyche, its who I am, its how I think through new situations and about the world. Sure, but todays world, as it is vastly distinct from my late 1970’s through 1990’s upbringing, is increasingly immaterial. I lived it; I watched it happen, I’m Generation X, Generation Crossover. As an object maker, that is huge, and probably true for most people born in the same time frame or earlier, to comprehend that change in some way that makes sense to them; it may take some more time. Solid things are now virtually, and therefore mentally, being replaced by digital versions of themselves, coded copies, archived, ready for up and downloading upon your command.
The state of the object is just at the beginning of its transformation according to Bruce Sterling in his book Shaping Things. From tangible Artifacts to three-dimensional printed Spimes and bio-nano-tech Biots, Sterling intelligently speculates our object oriented future, asking us gear up and adapt to rapid change.
So why make with clay still I ask?
Robert Smithson thought about geologic and immaterial things intensely and his awareness of comprehending two seemingly different states of consciousness still hold true today. Heres a quote from, “Fragments of an Interview with P.A. Norvell, April, 1969”.
“To be located between those two points puts you in a position of elsewhere, so there’s no focus. This outer edge and this center constantly subvert each other, cancel each other out. There is a suspension of destination. I think that conceptual art which depends completely on written data is only half the story; it only deals with the mind and it has to deal with the material too... There is no escape from matter. There is no escape from the physical nor is there any escape from the mind. The two are in a constant collision course. You might say that my work is like an artistic disaster. It is a quiet catastrophe of mind and matter.”
Smithson, of course is writing about the budding conceptual art movement in the late 1960’s and early 70’s, the height of immaterial thinking as art, as a thing, presiding ideas over objects, and by that I mean data and information having importance and meaning over formal concerns. (I wonder what Smithson would have thought about three-dimensional printed Spime objects?) He suggests that there is no escape.
Messy and stupid is who we are and clay personifies that exceptionally, as it has for a long time now. As my ceramic practice is part of my make up, I suggest it is also part of humanities, it’s who we are as a species. A material relationship created over numerous civilizations and a few thousand years will be hard to just right-click delete. And yet, I feel a disingenuous life creeping up in our near future, hygienically so, possibly puritanical. In denial of our upbringing, our species strives for further advancements in technologically supported purification. As a maker, some one who identifies by the work of their hands, the duality between a genetically imbued tactile comprehension of the world and one that is more and more removed from touch, continues to confound. That may just be the state of things these days, but unlike Smithson’s description between immaterial and the material knowledge, the line that divided the two is becoming more and more blurred through a hyper-reality of what is consider possible today.
It is easy to take a reactionary stance to all this, consider the Sloppy Craft label that was being thrown around a few years back. What reeks of humanity more than drippy lumpy fucked up-ness? Probably all consuming discussions about identity. If I had a completely malleable virtual avatar of myself who’s aspects I controlled most every day of my life online, so too would I have the same expectations IRL.
The idea of a post-internet culture/ society, what have you, is refreshing to me. The concept is in its infancy, possibly premature for the masses, but it gives me hope that we have not thrown everything, and by that I mean what we used to consider everything, down the drain just yet. My hope is that a post-internet mind is aware that there may be limits to our understanding of the tangible word, not everything can be converted, that may still we need some stuff around. We need things to make for the act of making. That is why art makes the most sense to me, of all things to make. Ikea makes fine dishes and I quite like them, as an artist with a ceramic based practice, I know I could make something equally functional, but why would I? We just don’t live in that world anymore.
That being said, the things that post-internet artists are making or are having made I find utterly lacking in interest. The work feels blasé, like they did all their art history reading, research is automated, then shrugged and gave up; creating for irony over any other human impulse. Regardless of the thing produced, regardless of the form that is presented, the concept is still the same, nullifying individuality completely. I suppose that’s what the internet did, it has rendered all its users ubiquitous, copy and past, hash tagging, reproducers. That sucks if that is where we lead humanity, I don’t want any part of that, and yet here I am dealing with it as I write this. My hope is that all this is a fad, we accept that yes, we outsourced our passions, but the desire to make is still within us and it is necessary to do so, let us mature as a species.
From a ceramicists point of view, I propose that this sticky situation of “to make or not to make”, can be better understood if we take the time to examine the material qualities of the substance itself. A formal approach I admit, but I think that’s my point of this rage essay. To be clear, I am discussing the material qualities of clay and not ceramic. As one comes before the other, as soft clay is being interpreted, we may be able to shed light on the continuing desire and impulse of haptic comprehension.
Clay, moist malleable ground with the potential for permanence, is in its most potently creative state right out of the box, mixer, or pug mill. At that point it urges use, it seduces us. Suggesting forms already, the freshly mixed clay, pulls at our imagination and insists we do something new to it. Clay is responsive. We play with a poke, a jab, possibly a good punch, before we bag it up or slam it into a heavy plastic tub for keeping. There it waits for further instruction, taunting us. When it is time, we haul out a lump, ten or twenty pounds, divide that into smaller portions and wedge. An exercise affirming connection between mind and hand, imagination stirring in potential. Clay is easy. A child can do it, and as the adage goes, so many of us try to remember that the more our practice grows.
Clay is a mimic. It can’t be pinned down. I think it is wonderful that clay, once fired, still confounds professionals and the public alike. That such an old medium, a mere geological substance, can continue to stir up speculation and controversy, says more about our humanity than anything else. Clay successfully dodges labels with each unique incarnation of form it takes; in the twenty first century that is a rather amazing thing to be able to say. Clay is political. The subject doesn’t take sides, the people do, creating a tension that will only spur discussions between the convictions of future generations. The debate will never die, it is not in clays material nature. It is messy and stupid, and constantly in motion, just like we have always been and should never forget to be. From that point of view, we can make anything and should.
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