Katharine Morling: Contemporary Crafts BA(Hons) graduate
Katharine Morling
BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts graduate, Katharine Morling, with a selection of her ceramics
Ceramics by Katharine Morling
A Stitch in Time by Katharine Morling
Ceramics by Katharine Morling
Poison Pen by Katharine Morling
Ceramics by Katharine Morling
Ceramics by Katharine Morling
BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts 2000 - 2003
I create animated scenes with an unusually dynamic appearance for the medium of ceramics.
The objects can be described as three-dimensional drawings. At first, the true nature of the material is not clear: paper or fabric? However, to the touch, it is clearly ceramic. The eye then re-adjusts within the context of the memories that the material holds. The tactile experience grounds the viewer with the material's solid, cold, hard and fragile reality.
Historically, drawing on ceramics is so broad, but this is the first time that anyone has used the three-dimensional body of the ceramic object, and the line, as a way to create drawings you can walk around.
The pieces work together in a tableau staging still lives of everyday objects: table and chairs, tools and cases. Stories start to unravel in the viewer's mind: the box that is locked the keys in an open drawer. Toys in a case resonate with nostalgia and fantasy. A ladder propped against a wall suggests that these toys could spring to life and lead an independent existence. A slightly surreal experience is created when one walks amongst this strange life-sized tableau.
The monochrome works are mainly porcelain or crank covered in a porcelain slip. Before firing, a black slip is drawn on revealing details and bringing the works to life.
My advice to students is to enter your subject because you love it, because it's the material you can most express yourself with. Experiment like crazy and push your experiments as far as you can. You can have loads of failures and tons of fun doing it.
I chose to study at Falmouth in part for the beauty of its location. Friends and I would swim in the sea before our morning lectures. We would be freezing, our fingers white, but it's only in Falmouth we could have done that before class.
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