2020, 200”x 87”x 3.25”, Media: Colored porcelain, Wild Clay/Raw Clay, Firing Process: Electric, Mid-range, Oxidation, Salt fired, Unfired, Surface: Unglazed
This installation is a culmination of five years of work. Like time, my work seemingly has no end. It is through the change of installation, the continued growing amount of work, and through continued conversations which makes my work forever changing. The constant is the cube, just as time is a seemingly constant as well.
2020, 7’x 9’x 1”, Media: Stoneware, Firing Process: Electric, Mid-range, Oxidation, Surface: Unglazed
This is a continuation of my "Conversations" series of works. I started using black clay in 2019 as a way to create a space for people who have survived mentally and physically abusive relationships to be able to talk about their experiences. The black clay, along with my choice to use it for three years, represents the three years I was in a mentally abusive relationship with a coal miner. Often the victims are seen as weak and they could 'simply' walk away from their abuser. In order to get black clay, I have to fire it. It must transform from its raw brown state in the heat of the firing to come out changed and stronger. This is much like what people must go through to get out of their situations.
2020, 56”x 36”x 3” , Media: Colored porcelain, Firing Process: Electric, Mid-range, Surface: Unglazed
In quantum mechanics physics, you learn about the frame of reference and how one event can be viewed differently depending on the viewer's frame of reference on where they see the event. Memories are similar in that depending on the number of people there, one event can be viewed in several different ways. This is a reflection of two people remembering one event in two different ways.
2021, print dimensions vary, Media: Mixed Media, Wild Clay/Raw Clay, Firing Process: Unfired, Surface: Non-ceramic, Unglazed
This series of work started in 2016 and is an ongoing project. In life, we meet people and interact with those around us. I started this project as a way to document a shared moment in time with someone. I ask those around me if they want to help make a moment of time. As we are making, we conversate. I photograph the person with their moment of time and write down part of our conversation. Their moment of time then gets saved to use in future installations. These are the quotes from the people in this photo from left to right and top to bottom: "Tiny little moment here for dum dum" "Ok fine give me a piece. Here ya go that's what you get." "It's like changing a grain of sand. We are changing the universe here." "Mine looks a little round. Anything for my teacher grand daughter" "I am the devourer of time" "Yeah I'll help you make it. I have done ceramics before." "Ok fine peer pressure. But I didn't agree to a photo. Not my face." "Let's make a dish and sell it. That was very capitalist saying. We all need dishes" "Make sure Yondu gets in the photo with us"
2020, 107”x 71”x 3”, Media: Colored porcelain, Firing Process: Electric, Mid-range, Surface: Unglazed
In quantum mechanics physics, you learn how we all carry around light cones. In my understanding, light cones are all your events in time that are causally connected through light. All leading up to the present moment and the ones that will be connected in the future (creating a cone). Depending on events in life, your light cone is (or even is not) connected with those around you. Although choices and event may cause you to be connected at a later point in time.
2019, 25’x 8’x 1.75” , Media: Wild Clay/Raw Clay, Firing Process: Unfired, Surface: Unglazed
During this installation, the R.W. Norton Gallery was open. I invited visitors to sit with me and actively participate in the installation. I allowed them to sit where and how they chose. This installation grew organically and captured a larger conversation in this space and in the space connecting to it as well.
2020, 107”x 71”x 3”, Media: Colored porcelain, Firing Process: Electric, Mid-range, Surface: Unglazed
My work seeks to give form to time. This is a representation of the 57 days I spent as a visiting artist at Belger Crane Yard Studios in Kansas City, MO. Like a clock on the wall, this installation is hung exactly where we usually view time. Each cube takes ten minutes to make. You are viewing 4,860 hours of time.
2018, 21’x 22’x 3.25”, Media: Porcelain, Wild Clay/Raw Clay, Firing Process: Electric, Mid-range, Unfired, Surface: Unglazed
An 'event' (in Physics) is a moment specific to a place and time where a physical situation or occurrence is associated with a point in spacetime. Seeking to combine the different ways I represent time, I create these ‘events’ that bring together the representation of moments in time (tiny cubes) and the continuous cycle of time (big cubes) in site-specific installations. I place each cube, one by one, in a grid along the floor. Being on the floor and on the same plane as the viewer forces the viewer to confront the work and to become consciously aware of their body in space and time.
2021, dimensions vary, Media: Wild Clay/Raw Clay, Firing Process: Unfired, Surface: Unglazed
The object being photographed is just as important as the photograph itself. I started my 'Moments Left Behind Series' in 2016 and it is an ongoing series of work. In my travels, I leave behind tiny clay cubes which I call moments in time. This represents the moments in time you leave behind and never get back. A photograph acts as a memory of that moment and makes it permanent. The clay being not fired, will eventually return to the Earth through weathering away.
2018, 3’x 5’x 1.75”, Media: Wild Clay/Raw Clay, Firing Process: Unfired, Surface: Unglazed
Growing up in northern Utah I had the mountains as my playground. I have since been fascinated by nature's repetitive way of creating natural features such as canyons and even sand. It takes billions of years for these formations to be created and are continually being carved out today. When looking at these and many more formations, I can't help but see time the way nature has given it form. These have all been individually hand-made over the years since 2016. Along with the help of others, I have over 375,000 tiny cubes.
Artist Statement
What is time? It cannot be seen, heard, smelled, or touched. It eludes all our senses, yet we experience it every day. Time is ubiquitous. To most, time is just a clock on the wall. A constant cycle of 24 hours resetting and repeating over and over again in a continuous loop with seemingly no end. My art gives form to these ideas in creative ways using art, geology, and quantum mechanics physics. Each cube is a product of time I call a ‘moment’ and installed together as sculpture, constitutes an ‘event’.
Going beyond just a clock on the wall, I seek to make time, a seemingly invisible event, visible. My art, given sufficient time, will work within a dynamical system that has the same behavior over time in all the different phases of creation and through site-specific installations will create different interpretations of its meaning. Stemming from the idea that the process of creating the art is just as important as the object that is created, the viewer can not merely move their eyes over the work or simply walk around it for there to be understanding. The viewer must actively engage their own interpretation of what time really is. This way of making allows my work to be created in the present, while always being a representation of time past. Time is a constant: my cubes are the constant. How we view our time, how we organize and perceive time is what constantly changes: my installations are the changes. Like time itself, my work and these forms have no end in sight.
Bio
Danielle Weigandt grew up as an army brat. After living all over the southern US, her family finally settled in Utah. There she earned her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree in Art Education with an emphasis in Ceramics. Danielle taught for two years in junior high and middle school. She later moved to Oklahoma where she earned her Master’s of Fine Arts degree in ceramics at The University of Oklahoma.