The action of breaking and turning over earth with a plow always fascinated me, the clods of earth being the result of this action, a simple 'gesture' from a machine which nevertheless brings about a dramatic change to the landscape, an awesome ephemeral sculpture being produced month after month, year after year .
I decided to take the clods and fire them to 1040 degrees C thus changing the state of the material from brittle and ephemeral to solid and permanent.
Moreover after applying metal oxides on them I refired them in a reduction atmosphere to produce rust and the colour of rust. I have exhibited the clods several times, as they grow in numbers year after year. A piece that I would like to make, but hasn’t been realized yet, would be to fire so many clods of earth as to fill the farmland that they came from
The sight of fired, plowed earth clods, a “fired field” among regular farmland would be one of majestic calm.
The action of breaking and turning over earth with a plow always fascinated me, the clods of earth being the result of this action, a simple 'gesture' from a machine which nevertheless brings about a dramatic change to the landscape, an awesome ephemeral sculpture being produced month after month, year after year .
I decided to take the clods and fire them to 1040 degrees C thus changing the state of the material from brittle and ephemeral to solid and permanent.
Moreover after applying metal oxides on them I refired them in a reduction atmosphere to produce rust and the colour of rust. I have exhibited the clods several times, as they grow in numbers year after year. A piece that I would like to make, but hasn’t been realized yet, would be to fire so many clods of earth as to fill the farmland that they came from
The sight of fired, plowed earth clods, a “fired field” among regular farmland would be one of majestic calm.