I've been thinking about how to engage with the idea of climate change in my clay practice. I've been feeling very urgently a desire to reflect on the nature elements (earth air, water, fire) and how our relationship with these has changed as a result of the changing climate. I am also thinking about how to incorporate memory - but not ours. Does water remember how the ocean used to taste, feel, sound, move? I've read that the increasing temperature of the oceans has changed the circulatory patterns of currents in the seas - does this feel like sluggish blood? High blood-pressure maybe? With swelling legs and feet as the body tries to keep up the pace?
Water will be the first element I address. And there is some humor in my mind as I think about embracing water with a medium that in the end has the water fully removed through the firing process.
I'm imagining a waterfall of clay shells - blue on the concave side - silver on the convex. The waterfall will hang from a spiral frame - which I will likely need to have fabricated out of some sort of metal (aluminum? brushed stainless steel? I need to find a metal worker to collaborate with...)
I'm imagining this waterfall having a diameter of about 4 or 5 feet. I'm imagining it hanging above a concave black mirror - the viewed has a direct and translated experience. There is the experience we see directly hanging in front of us and the removed/refracted experience in the mirror we look into.