Statement
In spite of our ability to explain the natural world, there is still a certain mystery to how matter changes form, seeming at first to be one thing, then becoming another. Light things become dark, soft things become hard, solid things begin to flow. Such transformations open onto questions of our own being and becoming and how we find ourselves in a world of flux.
Processes of change, formation and dissolution are integral to my approach to ceramics. I work with installations of raw ceramic materials such as crystalline salts, metallic compounds, and expansive clay minerals which transform upon their interaction with water in cycles of absorption and desiccation, evaporation and precipitation. In my fired work I explore the interaction of molten, crystalline colorants within layers of clear glaze as temporal embedments of conflicting thermal, material processes and events. I’m interested in how these material processes, as well as their forms and effects, have affinities with both the geological and the biological, landscape and the body. My work explores how experiential encounters with these raw and fired ceramic materials and processes can implicate the temporality and corporeality of the body, and also how when put in the public sphere as events with community participation they can draw attention to issues of sites and their interpretation.
— Linda Swanson
