My body instinctively responds to the clay, grabbing a fistful, kneading it into a smooth ball, holding it in my palm, enclosing it tightly in my fist, digging in my thumb, wriggling it out again, opening my fingers, and releasing the form.

The kilns hum and the air is dry, warm, the taste of clay in my breath.
Mostly it’s quiet, the trees outside sigh or shiver, sometimes a student stops to chat.

I haul a bag of clay onto the bench, pull a fistful from the slab,
breathe, knead, breathe, squeeze, breathe, release, breathe, puncture, breathe, open, breathe, set down, breathe.
I pace about the studio as I make. I line them up in rows to dry.
I wonder if machines meditate...

The pieces sit about to dry out, then disappear. Then appear again, changed in colour after their cremation.
They have become resonant objects, their sounds tumbling out as they are moved.
The pieces embody a connection, recording a communication of my body with earth.

They are amassed until their mass equals mine.
A body of earth.
A body of work.

They lay here now, a culmination of minutes, hours, days, months, of ‘work’.
A body measured in earth and time.

​

images below  showing the installation at LU Arts Degree show 2022