An Egg, A Seed, A Stone

2020 - 2021, ceramic objects, sand, plaster, mortar

Commissioned by The Auckland Art Fair, and The Chartwell Trust, with support from Creative New Zealand. Included in Present Tense, Projects 2021, curated by Micheal Do

These objects are singular, graspable, and mobile; each one formed between my hands, to fit in the hand of another. Eggs, stones, pods, seeds, created so they may flow out into the world and slip into the routines of others, tumbling through the small, repeating circles and cycles of the everyday. For a hand, for a pocket, to be tucked in a tote-bag or slipped under a pillow.

Each object may take on a nuanced role, in accordance with the needs of its holder.

They might act as anxiety pacifiers, worry absorbers.

Hold the object in one hand, lower your gaze, take three deep breaths, then slowly think through every stressor of that day – imagining as you do so, that each worry is passing through your skin, leaving your body, and storing itself in the held object.

Something to hold on to, to hold to, to hold. A haptic “It’s okay”. Offering the hand a moment of fullness, of courage and power, a nugget of what is needed.

The object may serve as a portable easer of loneliness. A tiny, hand-formed piece of company. Quiet but present. Static yet listening.

Such a form can be a small anchor, grounding one in the physical realm. A tactile counter-balance to amorphous billows of stress and thought. An instrument that brings the mind back to the body, to whorled skin, slender bones, flexing tendons, and soft, sensitive pads of flesh. Pods bearing rough-edged punctures, when squeezed, may work to further narrow one’s stream of attention, concentrating the holder’s focus to points of sharp contact. Geologic ridges digging into yielding palm.

Then again, the object could serve as a gentle incubator of ideas. An egg, a seed ready to sprout. Turned over and over in the hands, fiddled with, generating a pattern of recurrent sensation that might assist in following and growing a thought.

Each form, though one of many, has its own character, its own idiosyncratic body. Coerced into being through gentle action, squeezed, palmed, pierced, allowed to sit quietly for many weeks, slowly relinquishing moisture and weight. Baked to a clean, yellow-white heat. Iron spots emerging as dark freckles. Glazes melting, fluxing, settling into cold and shining skins of rippling blues, stippled ochre.

Find one that fits comfortably in your hand. Use it as you see fit.