Asymmetrical brings together a series of ceramic works exploring the effects of burnishing, glazes and firing processes on the final manifestation of the form and its surface qualities. The elements of this series of hand built forms came into life almost simultaneously over a period of several weeks. Each dried form was laboriously burnished, covered with slip and burnished again. When dry, the pots were fired in a gas kiln, first in an oxidizing atmosphere, which turned them a natural red-orange, and, some of them underwent several firings enclosed in a special container filled with wood shavings, where the reduced atmosphere causes the clay to chemically alter and turn black.
In formal terms these vessels manifest my continued research of ceramics within different cultural and historical periods, bringing together here, African references with citations of Cypriot pots of the Bronze Age. The development of the form has been influenced by my search for perfection of the formal aspects of the piece in terms of the relationship of the parts to each other: harmony and symmetry; and to the whole: organic balance.
Works were acquired by the Asmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Ceramic Collection at Aberystwyth University.
