|
M.V. And then?
J.W. Well my personal life went through a big change at that time,
and having been a couple ofyears in the States, at graduate school, I
obviously looked for opportunities in the States to stay there, and there
were numerous residencies that are available in the States and I just
applied to a load of them. So when I came out of graduate school, I actually
had a year fixed up of basically funded time to work which was fantastic.
So I was at Cal State University, Long Beach. I did a residency
there for a few months and then I was at the Banff Centre in Canada,
and then I was at Bemis Foundation, Omaha, and I was in the sort
of ceramic part of each of those.
M.V. Tell me about the work that you’d been doing. We’re now talking
about, what date have we got to, the 1990s?
J.W.
Yes, 1991 I graduated from Cranbrook. My work went through a major
change whenI got to the States. I’d just done two or three years basically
in ceramics when I went to the States, so I was beginning to be able to
technically do some things that I never had been able to do before building
quite large things, and they were quite constructed. I think when
I got to the States it was all so different and so new, clay didn’t arrive
in a plastic bag, you had to mix your own. So I was thrown into a whole
situation where I really couldn’t fall back on stuff I’d done before.
So I pretty much started from new, and I did a lot of cooking! Cooking
with the materials, throwing all sorts of things in and I was totally
encouraged.
M.V. So experimenting with the material?
J.W. Very much experimenting, and putting all kinds of things into the
clay body. I was also interested in the way my materials transformed.
I guess there was a sort of parallel with the way I was going through
changes as well. So there was a sort of diagonal going back and forth
between me and the work.
M.V. So you feel quite conscious of that relationship between your
personal life and your work?
J.W. Yes, and not just personal life
but surroundings, what I’m seeing at the time, what’s influencing me.
Place is a very big thing, and I notice that more and more, that travels
and things tend to influence quite a lot, what I do, but I think there’s
a sort of underlying...this sort of alchemy interest...
M.V. Do you mean by that this mixing of materials, and experimenting
with them?
J.W. Yes, it’s a sort of “what if?”.
Also as I learned more about what the alchemists did. It’s a sort of parallel
between what they do with matter and what they do with spirit perhaps.
So it’s like a development of the interior at the same time, as an experimentation
with matter, and I think that’s what absolutely fascinated me.
|