Artistic Interpretation of Natural Details
Growing up I was introduced to a lot of different art (drawing, painting, needle craft, pottery, etc. etc.) from different members of my family and in school. However, It was after I began working on a graduate degree in the sciences that I started focusing a bit more on ceramics. For me many of those other artistic mediums required the same sort of analytic, focused attention that I was burning up all day with class work and research. Working with clay can be very tactile, and in grad school I made a lot of random shapes where my fingers were doing most of the thinking because my head was done for the day. My little creature sculptures were born out of the language my hands developed during that time.
As I have found some distance from grad school, my ceramic art has become much more detail-oriented. My grad work covered phenomenon deeply related to the way atoms are arranged in metals, and I spent many hours staring at these geometric patterns over the course of my studies. Now, I spend much of my time in the studio punching divots or pierced holes into these same patterns. I have recently started a board on pinterest (rdboyer or 2nd "shop website" link on left) called "Materials" that contains images representing some of my scientific inspirations.
The tools for my pottery techniques can be generally described as “pointy sticks.” Potter’s wheels and hand building techniques are fun, but from my perspective, the best part of the process is the individually pierced holes or other repetitive detail work. It's quite relaxing.
I'm also fascinated by the way that the patterns found in nature are highly transferable. I think about the arrangement of copper atoms when punching holes but sometimes create something that largely resembles a honeycomb. I have recently begun thinking about the patterns of wood grain and have vases and bowls painted with these ideas in mind. When I started doing the same pattern in purple and white, thinking I was going to make a pop-art version of wood grain, I found that everyone...self included...saw zebra stripes.
