Annette Lindenberg Portfolio of Practice

Geological Thought Annette Lindenberg

Artist Statement Breathe in, exhale, feel the earth beneath your fingertips - an internal rhythm between clay and maker, tenderly excavating to find the object within. Kurinuki (the japanese technique of hollowing solid clay) feels like a dance, bending the clay body, guiding hands to complete its form.

My work expresses moments of thought and memory felt in my being. Approaching the layers of my pieces intuitively and critically through experience; teetering delicately between subconscious design decisions and deliberate imposition of material intention.

Extracting new combinations, through glazing or carving, the pieces I bring into existence are discoveries of quietly philosophical vessels that have their own autonomy. Each to surpass my years, once fired. To be excavated once more and to be discovered and thought about again.

And so, I continue to find the objects hidden in my mind and clay.

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1. ‘Silver droplets on crackle’ cup

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The Research While the earth beneath us can seem unspectacular at times, its ability to change, morph into objects of function, art, and beautiful new materials, fascinates me.

I was particularly interested in how the pieces to the earthy puzzle I was creating interact; the layers a result of investigations into clays, glazes, slips and multiple firings. Initial experiments led me to start finding new chemical combinations for clay bodies that resulted in tests that often sat between a glaze and a clay. It was the way the materials presented themselves that caught my attention gooey, cracking, pooling, metallic, viscous and brittle.

As I progressed with my experimenting, I found myself drawn to glazes that enhanced the clay’s attributes, brought out a colourtone through special cooling cycles, looked like frozen drips or showed unique textures and cracking patterns. The clay could be made to look more dry or wet depending on the glaze used. Those that cracked could look cold as ice while those that lacked in gloss and separated (crawled) looked warm and dry.

2. ‘Gun Metal’ test tile

3. ‘Crystalline Black’ tea bowl 4

4. ‘Deep green’ glaze test on porcelain

5. ‘Peeling’ glaze test on black clay

6. ‘Bubbling black’ glaze test on porcelain 5

As I looked closely, I could see crystals forming and iridescent pools in one of my oil spots. With what I knew of my materials, the firings and techniques for application, I decided to start applying my glazes in layersone high fired, one low fired. The results, small at first, had a quality like condensation... tiny watery beads that grew as I learnt more about what I was doing. (see image 1. ‘Silver water droplets on crackle’) Experimenting with this application technique and firing, I was attempting this mixture on new glazes. Some maintained their gloss, others were dulled by introducing this new chemical formula and some even reacted (see image 9.).

The reactions presented themselves by appearing as a dulled metallic tone, an uneven surface to their beads and most interestingly - a reflective purple sheen around its clusters, particularly on black clay.

7. ‘Layered Glazes’ cup

It wasn’t until I began playing with my methods of glazing and firing that I saw what really excited me: Mixtures of glazes poured over one another, applied with wax in between layers, using a pipette for pinpointed application and slips dabbed over glazes.

A development I am beginning to notice in a few of my beads under very close inspection is the formation of tiny reflective planes and milky edges where the bead has mixed with the glaze it is sat upon.

Each test became more complex and yet simpler, I understood why and how I was getting more and more metallic results. The temperature had to be just right, the cooling rate had to be calculated and precise.

8. ‘Crystalline Black’ tea bowl inside 6

9. ‘Reactive silver droplets’ tea bowl

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The Method The art of Kurinuki, hollowing out and carving from a block of clay, has a reductive quality. Each layer, form, speckle of texture, is uncovered by my careful digging. Shapes evolve through a collaboration between maker and clay, showing off tool marks, an uneven thickness and other attributes often considered undesirable in modern day pottery.

The method can feel primitive and yet intuitive - discovering what you are making as you go rather than approaching objects with a preconceived notion of how they must look. Every cut counts and this “pruning” of the clay has the ability to create works full of sensitivity.

10. ‘Layered rock’ tea bowl

Breathe in, exhale I cup the solid clay Fingers wrap, palms hug The metal of my tool scrapes through the muddied block The clay tries to arch with each stroke Gently guide, gently let go Each cut, each twist, each slice To the rhythm of my breath

11. ‘Reactive silver droplets’ cup 8

12. ‘Grey layered rock’ tea bowl The work started simple, using one clay each time. As I inspected rocks I had collected however, the complexity of my blocks became more curated - taking days at a time, forming lines, blobs, marks, squiggles. They grew to 12 kg blocks, they shrank to 2 kg blocks. Each one a discovery, unveiling the curation, every one different to what I had expected.

My carving methods evolved from straight cut facets to creating tiny, rocky qualities, like the stones I had been looking to. I started bashing, squashing and scratching the surfaces with textured objects, often heavily denting my blocks pre carving. Through carving alone, each took form, expanding in my hands, moulding itself to my movements and softening its harsh textures.

Inspecting particular geological formations, ancient Egyptian carved stone vases and choosing stone-like clay qualities, the bowls became their own organic formations, as earthy as their inspirations.

13. ‘Faceted diorite’ tea bowl The piece ‘faceted diorite’ is made from heavily grogged black clay and a fine porcelain.

A notoriously difficult combination, the two clays’ significantly different behaviours and aesthetic qualities combine to create a very stoney ceramic.

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The Ideas The Thoughts

14. ‘Cliff edge’ cup

15. ‘Black pebble’ cup

While my work can appear to be chasing complexity, sometimes pushing aside simplicity, my incessant need to keep learning about the materials of my craft is in fact to relive a child-like excitement through my endless experiments. My reasoning for working this way is often “just because” - not because I do not know how to form concepts, or never have them, but because I often actively reject them prior to making. Working towards a complex narrative can feel stunting, while working in a complex way towards simplicity can feel freeing, using your knowledge to create a carefully curated yet free-spirited object.

My work over the past year has revisited recurring themes - grittiness, metals, wet-appearing glazes, tactile surfaces and a feeling of curated wilderness.

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16. ‘Wet sand’ tea bowl

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I have discovered that it is not until after making, through evaluation and contemplation, that I begin to understand the puzzle I have created. Often I can see aspects of my own life coming through in what appeals to me - the warm toasted clay, like the beaches I visited with my grandmother (image 16.), textures like the sand between my toes.

I have to hold my work, take it with me on walks, to examine it like I examined the rocks in my pockets when I was 5. My personal narrative towards my work lies in a need to not always understand why but to enjoy the how, making connections later.

Reflecting on the work made over this past year, the pieces give me a sense of homecoming, are almost all expressing some of my happiest and naive moments, enchanted by nature. Visiting the UK as a child from land-locked Austria, I distinctly remember sensations of natural phenomena and have been feeling and seeing them in my most recent work.

Water appearing to be a bobbing sheet of metal as the sun sets.

17. ‘Wet sand’ tea bowl 12

18. ‘Cliff edge’ cup

19. ‘Layered rock’ tea bowl

Sea spray hitting the rocks, pearling, sparkling before being

20. ‘Evening sea ripples’ cup

absorbed.

Squiggles of sea foam as the water laps the sand Curiously sharp and smooth stones tumbling in the waves From my colours, to forms, to glazing methods; my works capture my re-lived joy. Expressions of thoughts, layered through firings and approaches to carving, my pieces speak to my lived experience.

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The work I produce is only in part for myself, in part for others to discover for themselves; to examine and to feel how they wish to. When making, I remind myself that what I produce has longevity once fired, an ability to live on and must speak despite my narrative. My thoughts and process are the build up to my objects but may not always define them. Like the pebbles I collected as a child or the textures I am drawn to, all are but the womb in which the works are imagined and brought into being.

As potters we have the ability to bring life to our earth in strange and imaginative ways, to grow forms from it and undo what we have made. I do not believe every object must be fired or glazed, some will simply melt away into my bucket of water to be reused another day, while others spend time with me as I observe them over weeks and months, analysing their shape, deciding how to fire them. Clay’s ability to sense the maker, their movements, their feelings, their eye for curation is unlike many other materials.

It speaks to us in different ways, forming glass layers, stone-like textures and in combination with other natural substances, forming objects that record a snapshot in time.

And so, I continue to find the objects hidden in my mind and clay.

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21. ‘Silver droplets on crackle’ cup Link to video

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