The Waves

When a journalist pointed out to British sculptor Barbara Hepworth that her work was ‘very organic’ in an interview once, she replied ‘It’s meant to be, I’m organic myself.’

As an artist inhabiting this planet, my body made from up to seventy five percent water and the same elements as the plants and earth around me, I feel a similar way. My work is ultimately an extension and a reflection of what is at my fingertips in both a material and emotional sense and conceptually feeds off the energy and information created by events and circumstances around me.

During the last two years I have found myself, like many others, unable to turn my gaze outwards with the discovery of travel, friends, cultural activities and the usual, well-established routines of distraction and consumption. The domestic sphere, the studio and the internet have become the centre of my universe, that and the Merri creek, along which I walk each day. Language used around the reporting of the virus have crept into my work like an insidious parasite. My unconscious constantly processing the growing list of buzz words from the media along with the creeping claustrophobia of domestic confinement.

At the beginning, lockdown was quite novel. Having the whole family at home, eating lunch together and feeling cosy in our nest. Then came the very real and debilitating waves of fear. The universal anxiety and relentless wave after wave of restrictions, stretching of timelines and corresponding uncertainty. During this strange time, I made these works.

With each new wave I noticed myself digging deeper into my practice, searching for a way to still my anxious hands and focus my turbulent mind. I returned to clay, as I always do in times of emotional need. There is something about clay that requires me to think in an intuitive and organic way. Temperature, moisture, pressure and touch are all languages of clay, just as they are languages of nature. Not enough moisture and it will crack. Not enough time to slowly dry and it will shrink and pucker. I form the shapes themselves using the grounding actions of rolling, compressing, pounding and smoothing with my hands, as humans have for thousands of years. There is something about allowing myself to follow these languages that helps me to process and understand what is going on around me. There is also something resolute, hard edged and resilient about the end product- a relic that may last for thousands of years, to tell a story of this time.

Once fired, photographed and titled, the works themselves will eventually become ‘intruders’ into the cottage (Heide I) at Heide Museum of Modern Art. Not to be shown on the usual plinths and hanging system that paintings usually acquaint themselves, but as creepers into the ‘other’ spaces.  These ceramic parasites find themselves congregating in the utilitarian secondary cottage recesses; the fireplace and the kitchen mantel above the hearth, the bathtub and shower.  They appear, as if they are remnants or ghosts of the dark domestic troubles that once brewed in this complicated home.

These vessels are not only sculptures expressing symbols distilled from this tumultuous year. They are utilitarian. They are universal. They are useful. They are helping me to keep it together and to process what it means to make art in this time. They are helping me make sense of this impossible bouquet that is being a mother, a teacher, a lover, a mentor, a cleaner, a farmer, an illustrator, a storyteller, an activist and a critic. They will also go on to have lives beyond this exhibition as a practical vessels to display blooms in people’s homes.

Each vessel’s future incarnation as a vase in someone’s home will provide a way to remind us that all hope is not lost. A seed can still germinate, grow and bloom. As can an idea, a process of reconciliation, an action to facilitate healing and a plan for our future.

Tai Snaith, 2021.