Some designs want more space than clay alone can give. Here are a few of the works in progress.
How tiles sprout wings and paintings follow.
There’s an idea that one aspect of your artistic output “feeds” another area of your creative work. It’s called backfeeding and it’s interesting to experience it because it feels as if the boundaries between your media are dissolving.
When I started doing ceramics almost a decade ago, I was really just playing around with the clay, making whatever would amuse my fancy. Not once did I consider that my interest in monsterpots or eyeball mugs would ever be influenced by my illustrated works. Nor did I think that my painting interest in nature would somehow begin to take on any characteristics of my ceramics. Really, I thought the two worlds were completely separate.
However, recently, I’ve begun a series of smaller oil paintings that are directly the result of my sigil tiles. Often it begins with a drawing. From there, the design itself seems to decide whether it wants to live in clay or in paint. Some ideas insist on becoming tactile, impressed into the surface of a tile—while others call for translucence and layers, only possible in oil.
As I was drawing out a few ideas for the tiles, I began musing that some of the designs would be better suited to a medium that could better translate more complex imagery. Of course, if I worked larger in clay, I could manage to craft very elaborate designs—but ephemeral effects like diaphanous-ness, light particulates, undulating filamentous stuff, still won’t be treated properly in an opaque medium. The fact that oils can be glazed and made translucent makes all the difference.
The little paintings continue the ideas behind the tiles: intentions and the Eye of Providence as apotropaic magic. But now I can incorporate more, evoking dreamscapes, creatures as implied symbols, and more.
I’m curious to see how these paintings resonate outside my own studio. Some of my tiles have already sprouted wings, so who knows what the paintings will demand next. If one of these crossovers makes you smile, tilt your head, or dream a bit, I’d love to hear in the comments.