Two weeks ago 50+ manic smiling Jelly Babies were striding around this vase Emoji like. It was the last pot I made before the plane took off with everything stowed away on board.
SMILE sold last weekend at my open house exhibition, cheers all round. It was only just out of the kiln and I had had hardly had time to gaze at it myself. These big pots take so long to make and SMILE took me about 120 hours. Spending a long time on a piece working so close makes it impossible to see the big picture; I rely on my original vision and idea and hope it all works in the end.
The painting process is carried out with what the overall finished pot in my mind. Of course there are design problems to tackle in the process; fitting in the jelly babies around the circumference was a nightmare at times. Working close up its never possible to see the overall pot, that moment comes as I take it from the kiln, then l can spend a little time watching it out of the corner of my eye, trying to catch it when I’m not expecting it.
One initial point of reference in this piece was the Adam Curtis film Hyper-Normalisation and this pot started to come to life after watching it. An antidote to the post-truth world of today. But really I hoped this pot would become a kind of spiritual power station that could transfer happiness at a glance or a gentle touch.
Everybody keep smiling!