11th
Hidden messages #1
When looking at pots (or other art) I like to, on occasion, switch lenses to one of trying to see all the information that’s there before me. This is particularly useful in attempts to make my work more potent. The idea is to get past unintended consequences and inclusions so that, as much as possible, everything that is perceivable about the work serves the core idea of the work.
Some aspects remain stubbornly hidden in plain sight. There are so many associations of class, domesticity, nostalgia, and more associated with simply a glazed surface - a foregone conclusion of an element in any functional pot - that you may have a mountain to climb in terms of reining in the cultural signals your work gives off.
To illustrate, I recently came across the work below by Charles Krafft. In this piece Krafft sets off a flurry of questions for the viewer by crossing two worlds that never overlap - a menial weapon whose surface is borrowed from 18th c. Imperial Europe.
There are perhaps many meanings to this work, but it is impossible to look at the blue-on-white brushwork - a derivation from prized ancient Chinese porcelains, a look still wildly popular as a glazing approach today - and not see it starkly for what it is with all its connotations. The same surface on a bowl or pitcher would fail to raise an eyebrow.
