André Pielage |2

André Pielage doesn’t like clay but some works just need to be executed in this §√¢{/π@! material — the porous tubes filled with water he envisioned as hosts to mosses, ferns and orchids, for example. What would be more beautiful than to take clay from the earth and return it to nature as a hospitable environment for all kinds of species? Or the human figure composed of fragile ceramic balls formed from mixing clay with fish food. After firing, a brittle, open structure remains, causing the sculpture to crumble further with every exhibition. Alas, bad luck and technical complications haunted his residency, and many experiments will have to be continued some other time. Pielage did make some beautiful tiles however, with human figures outlined in crackled glaze, ghostlike and present at the same time. Meanwhile, a glorious story of growth and decay, vulnerability and resilience, remains hidden in the shards.

Pielage began his residency with simultaneous work on several different sculptural works and, therefore, several different ceramic processes. He extruded long, hollow lengths of coarse Terra Nigra clay and then bent them, using a hand-made template, into a series of arches. He hand-extruded and then augmented cylindrical lengths of clay into organic, branch-like forms, some of which were made to sit in high-fired ceramic basins (intended to eventually hold water). He slab-built a series of tiles in varying sizes and worked to reproduce a glaze sample made in his last EKWC residency which required much testing and three separate firings to achieve. He arrived quickly to the solution of fish food as an organic material that could convey porcelain into the kiln and then burn away, leaving an empty cavity. Fired in small hand-sized bundles, this crumbly porcelain was then stacked into the form of a recumbent figure.