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CLOSE TO HOME
By
LINDSAY ROGERS
SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE:
Linda Arbuckle, CHAIR Anna Calluori Holcombe, MEMBER Lauren Garber Lake, MEMBER
Nan Smith, MEMBER
A PROJECT IN LIEU OF THESIS PRESENTED TO THE COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
2012
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© 2013 Lindsay Rogers
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................................
4 LIST OF FIGURES...................................................................................................................... 5 ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................................................
6 PROJECT REPORT..................................................................................................................... 8 Introduction..................................................................................................................... 8 A Brief History of American Food Culture............................................................................. 9 Cultural Shift..................................................................................................................... 11 My Project......................................................................................................................... 13 Farm Work................................................................................................................ 14 Bringing the Farm Home............................................................................................ 16 Presentation Vessels.................................................................................................. 16 The Table.................................................................................................................. 18 Beyond the Gallery.................................................................................................... 20 Embracing Our True Home......................................................................................... 21 APPENDIX................................................................................................................................ 23 Figures.............................................................................................................................. 23 Technical Statement.......................................................................................................... 31 LIST OF REFERENCES................................................................................................................ 33 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH........................................................................................................... 34
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to take a moment to express my gratitude to everyone who has helped me with this project. First, I would like to thank my committee for three wonderful years of guidance and support. To my chair: Professor Linda Arbuckle; and my committee members: Professor Anna Calluori Holcombe, Professor Lauren Lake and Professor Nan Smith, I do not speak lightly when I say that your words and actions will continue to guide me for the years to come. I would also like to thank Ray Gonzales and Brad Smith for your technical prowess and good humor when I showed you my building plans for my exhibition. Without your help my show would not have materialized. To Donna Flannery, Rhonda Chan and Roberta Seldman for being the most consistent and kind listeners that anyone could ever ask for; and to Marisa Falcigno, for being the wonderful and generous person that you always are. Lastly, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to all of the people at Swallowtail Farm, without whom life would be much less beautiful… and delicious. Thank you all.
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Broccoli, Swallowtail farm, Alachua, Florida............................................................. 24 Figure 2: Close to Home, instillation view................................................................................ 24 Figure 3: Kale Vase, instillation view....................................................................................... 25 Figure 4: Carrot and Onion Vases, installation view................................................................ 25 Figure 5: Glass Vessel With Carrot, Detail............................................................................... 26 Figure 6: Onion Vessel, Detail.................................................................................................. 26 Figure 7: Table Top, Detail....................................................................................................... 27 Figure 8: Table, installation view............................................................................................. 27
2 Figure 9: Postcard, installation view........................................................................................ 28 Figure 10: Postcard: front, Detail............................................................................................. 28 Figure 11: Postcard: back, Detail............................................................................................. 29 Figure 12: Magnet, Detail........................................................................................................ 29 Figure 13: Pots in Use, Ayumi Horie........................................................................................ 30 Figure 14: Mug, Kowkie Durst................................................................................................. 30 Figure 15: Plate, Kip O’Krongly................................................................................................ 31
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Summary of Project in Lieu of Thesis Presented to the College of Fine Arts of the University of Florida
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts
CLOSE TO HOME
By
Lindsay Rogers
May 2013
Chair: Linda Arbuckle Major: Art
Over the past century the United States has experienced a significant shift in the way we
produce and consume food. Mass agriculture, processed and packaged foods, while bountiful, are
creating substantial challenges to the environment and our health. The implementation of large-‐scale
food production has brought a whole new dialogue about safety, sustainability and economy to the
table. With my thesis show, Close to Home, I am asking the viewers to consider where their food comes
from. Through a series of functional ceramic and glass vessels, I aim to inspire a reconnection with our
food and awaken the audience to the beauty and cultural value of a sustainable, locally produced food
system.
By teaming up with nearby Swallowtail Farm, the vessels in my exhibition present sustainably
produced vegetables. Placed in a contemporary domestic setting, the pottery I have created is displayed
on handcrafted furniture. The repeated appearance of glass-‐covered soil, weathered wood and
decorative line work brings the viewer simultaneously in to the contemporary home and the farm space
where this food is grown. Presentation vessels throughout the show display kale, carrots and onions in
a way that highlights their appearance and visually frames them on the wall. A table placed in the
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center of the exhibit is set with plates, bowls and a diverse row of vegetables down the middle,
elevating the food to centerpiece worthy status. Through these visual elements, it is my intent to
encourage the audience to consider not only the beauty and nutritional value of these vegetables, but
also where they came from, how they were produced and who grew them. When we choose to support
local and sustainably produced food, we become more intimately connected to the communities we live
in and acquire a healthy understanding of the biological rhythm of life.
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Close to Home
INTRODUCTION
The food we eat is one of the most intimate choices we make in our daily lives. Long
past our hunting and gathering days, our contemporary food choices have as much to do with
our personal preferences and culture as they do with our biological need for nourishment. Over
the past two hundred years, technological advances in farming and food engineering have
allowed us to make the choices about what we eat more casually than ever before. Food is
produced with the intent of being cheaply processed, readily available, and marketed for
convenience. In a relatively short amount of time, America has embraced a fast-‐paced culture
that has separated us from how our food is truly created. This disconnect has largely removed
the consumer from experiencing the cycles of nature as they relate to the production of food.
With my thesis exhibition, Close to Home, I encourage the audience to connect with the
seasonal nature of healthy, beautiful, delicious, and local food. By teaming up with nearby
Swallowtail Farm, I exhibit locally grown and seasonally relevant vegetables in a series of
handbuilt presentation vessels. Displayed in the context of the contemporary domestic setting,
these vessels are designed to elevate the status of vegetables in the home while also
connecting them to the ground from which they came. I bring locally grown food into the
contemporary setting as a valuable feature in our contemporary food lives.
“What we are tying to do here… is bring food into the context of nature and culture. That’s where all the beauty and meaning is. This is a universal idea. It connects the garden with the kitchen, and with the table, and back to the garden again.” -‐Alice Waters
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Along with the reconnection to nature through food, Close to Home, has a distinct
message of labor, process, and care that is paralleled in the production of both the vegetables I
elevate as well as in the vessels displayed on the handmade table. Much like the methodical
process involved in sprouting, transplanting, and growing organic food, the forms I make are
created through a slow and deliberate process of building with the clay. The ceramic vessels
reflect a sense of history and labor through their surfaces. The surface decoration is raised and
tactile. The line work is broken and imperfect. The slip application is chipped and healed over.
These imperfections purposefully mimic a surface worn from use. This aesthetic of age, when
combined with a minimal and sophisticated form, presents the food in a way that brings the
wisdom of old objects into the contemporary realm of food production and presentation. This
pairing is a deliberate gesture to elevate the food and the handmade ceramic vessel. This
dedication to create vessels that collaborate with locally grown vegetables exposes both the
food and ceramic objects as beautiful fruits that only come from a significant amount of labor.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF AMERICAN FOOD CULTURE
It has been a long time since most Americans have had to grow their own food for
survival. The onset of the industrial revolution brought many changes to our contemporary
food landscape. Increased ease of transportation, along with new growing and irrigation
technologies, quickly allowed the American diet to blur the boundaries of time and season.
Fruits and vegetables that were once only available for a small window of time could now be
grown in a more favorable location and transported to far away markets. This accessibility was
unprecedented. As the population grew and the pace of American culture steadily increased, so
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did its demand for this fast, cheap, and easily prepared food. From about the 1950s onwards,
this swift transition into convenience food started to erode our cultural awareness of the
production methods of what we eat. Our food system, and our perception of it, was being
dramatically transformed.
While the food industry was getting more adept at understanding the science of food
and farming, it was also becoming savvy at marketing. In the past century, food has become
more than just nourishment; it has become a business, and a very profitable one at that. In
February of 2013, the New York Times published an article exposing the less-‐than-‐wholesome
practices of big-‐brand food. For years the largest food companies in America have been
engineering foods that have purposefully addictive qualities, and then marketing them heavily
to both children and adults.i This is not only troubling because of its widespread health
consequences, but also because as more engineering goes in to the production of food, the
more the real source of food slips further and further from our collective understanding and
control.
The consequences of this lack of understanding go far beyond the health of our
individual bodies and into the health of our communities and, more significantly, our planet. In
his bestselling book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, author Michel Pollan makes a very convincing
case for a dramatic reevaluation of our current food system. He points out that, “by replacing
solar energy with fossil fuels, by raising millions of food animals in close confinement, by
feeding those animals foods they never evolved to eat, and by feeding ourselves foods far more
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novel than we even realize, we are taking risks with our health and the health of the natural
world that are unprecedented.” ii
This unprecedented risk is already being painfully felt. In the United States, cases of
diet-‐related diseases like heart disease and type-‐2 diabetes have risen to epidemic proportions
over the past 30 years.iii More than half of American adults are now considered over weight,
with over a quarter being considered clinically obese.iv Perhaps the most disturbing revelation
about our misguided food system is that this is the first generation in nearly two centuries
where children have shorter expected life spans than that of their parents.v This culture of
processed food relies heavily on overproduction and waste. This waste is not responsible,
sustainable, or healthy. In the period of what may seem like an evolutionary blink of an eye, we
have become reliant on a system that is quickly making us, and our planet, very, very sick.
CULTURAL SHIFT
Although these hidden costs of convenience are only now gaining real mainstream
media attention, there have been advocates for a food revolution in this country since the
1940s. By appealing to American taste buds, Julia Child and Alice Waters aimed to shape our
food culture with their culinary talents. By empowering the 60’s housewife to try her hand at
mastering the art of French cooking, Julia Child created her own style of hybridized
American/French cuisine that encouraged women to stray from the tin can and back to fresh
produce for best flavor. vi
About 10 years later, Alice Waters also began her appeal to the American palate
through seasonal food. Waters’ restaurant, Chez Panisse, opened in Berkeley, California in 1971
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with a very distinct mission: to use the seductive qualities of food to change the way people
eat. vii She and her contemporaries soon discovered that the best-‐tasting food came from local
farmers, ranchers, foragers and fisherman who were committed to sound and sustainable
practices.“ viii When preparing meals for the restaurant, she and her chefs were among the first
to pick food for its freshness, taste, and beauty. To this day, distinct care goes in to the
preparation and presentation of the food they serve, and that value of care is passed on to her
customers and travels outward.
Waters’ goal, at least at the start, was to make locally sourced fine dining accessible to
everyone. The original cost of a four-‐course meal at Chez Panisse was $3.95, which turned out
to be unsustainably low. ix However, as much as this price tag has dramatically increased, this
idea of universal accessibility to, “good, clean, and fair,” food became the motto of the Slow
Food movement that she helped to usher in to the U.S. in the early 80s. A stark contrast to the
growing industrialized food system, the Slow Food movement celebrated responsibility and
care.
Since then there have been offshoots of this movement appearing all over the country.
Groups that embrace community interaction and mutual support as a tool for food advocacy
are becoming increasingly visible. For the past three years, the TEDxManhattan conference has
dedicated its full panel of speakers to this growing food revolution. In their series of talks, titled
Changing the Way We Eat, there have been countless calls to action from chefs, farmers,
scientists, activists, educators, artists, parents, all with the same goal: to encourage a more
sustainable food system for the health of bodies and our planet.
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The good news is that these calls to action have resulted in some quantifiable effects.
While collaborations between big businesses and small sustainable farms are still in the vast
minority, they are starting to happen. x Major corporations are starting to recognize that denial
of damage being done by the industrial food production is no longer an option.xi However,
perhaps the most noticeable change in our contemporary food system is popping up in our own
backyards. In 2010, there were over 6,000 documented farmers’ markets throughout the
United States of America. This number is a threefold increase from the previous 15 years.
Additionally, the demand for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm shares is steadily
increasing. This program allows community members to invest in the health of a local farm
through advance payment of a share of that seasons harvest. This gives the farm the monetary
security it needs to grow their crops, while assuring the customer that they will receive a
constant stream of local food throughout the growing season. The statistical rise in this type of
CSA program has been even more dramatic than that of the farmers markets. In 1986 there
were 2 CSAs in the U.S., in 2010 there were nearly 4000.xii According to Local Harvest, a website
dedicated to helping consumers access local food, in Gainesville alone there are 12 farms with
an active CSA program.xiii All over the country Americans are waking up to the harsh realities of
industrialized food and are beginning to turn towards embracing a healthier and more
sustainable system.
MY PROJECT
While I have been reading about food production and how we create, serve, and eat in
this country for years, my real research began in the summer of 2010 when I was granted a
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Graduate Student Fellowship from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. With
this fellowship, I travelled to the Bay Area of California to explore the relationship between the
local food movement and handmade pottery in a region renowned for food presentation. A
region steeped in culinary history, the Bay Area is also the birthplace of the Slow Food
movement in America and houses one of the most established food scenes in the country.
With this visit, I had access to restaurants that were using locally sourced food to serve
up a variety of exquisitely prepared meals. Some of the restaurants I visited had a steep
inclination towards fine dining and gourmet food presentation. This specific dining experience
focused not only on exquisite taste, but beautiful design. With dutifully elevated presentation
of local food, these establishments were marrying a contemporary language about food
consumption (and tastes), while also existing as a living reference to a historical foundation of
elegant serving and etiquette.
When I returned home from my trip, I started to consider more significantly how the
contemporary ceramic vessel, could use the beauty of local food to help encourage a more
sustainable food system. Taking a cue from this trip, and from the philosophy of Alice Waters, I
began to see distinct potential in boosting the cultural value of local food by appealing to the
seduction of food itself. To me, there is nothing more lovely than a row of vegetables coming
out of the ground. This was the birth of Close to Home.
FARM WORK “…large scale change seldom requires unity, but it does require collaboration.” -‐ Philip Ackerman-‐Leist, Rebuilding the Foodshed
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In late summer of 2012, I realized that direct collaboration with a farm would be the
most effective means for expanding the audience of both locally grown food and handmade
ceramics. After visiting the local farmers markets and researching the growing practices of the
participating farms, I decided to approach Noah Shitama, the head farmer at Swallowtail Farm.
As a small biodiverse farm located in the city of Alachua, Florida, Swallowtail is home to three
farmers, four interns, pigs, chickens and numerous small fields of vegetables and flowers. After
talking to Noah, it became quite apparent that the people at Swallowtail were not just
producing food; through farm-‐to-‐table events, volunteer days, farm fairs, CSA shares, and
supplying food to local restaurants, Swallowtail is actively engaged in the outreach required to
encourage meaningful change. This level of engagement was a perfect fit for a collaborative
project.
From September through December 2012, I worked at the farm every Friday morning.
My tasks ranged from laying irrigation hose, to feeding chickens, to planting and harvesting
food for the Saturday market. Physically working in the fields allowed me to clearly see the
repeated lines and patterns that make up the landscape of a small farm (figure 1). Spiritually,
time spent on physical labor afforded me a space of mental pause. This pause reaffirmed
something that I have known since my youth: there is something distinctly uncomplicated and
about standing in a field of vegetables. Watching the changing growth on a small farm every
week as it transitioned from seedling to harvest was wonderful. Like a slow motion wave, the
landscape of plants seemed to effortlessly shift shape, color and gently fade away. It was with
the desire to convey this sophisticated feeling of simplicity and natural balance that I designed
the objects and the space of my show.
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BRINGING THE FARM HOME
My exhibition design merges the aesthetic of the farm with that of the contemporary
home (figure 2). Situating the look of the farm within the domestic space gives the sustainable
food system I am promoting a tangible entryway into the modern home. Drowned by the
abundance of processed convenient foods, vegetables often inhabit a secondary and obligatory
role in our meals. This notion is directly challenged by my show. By bringing the feel of the farm
in to the domestic arena, the space becomes a celebration of the natural beauty of vegetables.
However, these are not just any vegetables. By visually repeating the allusion of roots
connected to soil, the locality and season of these vegetables also becomes significant.
Throughout the entire exhibition space the recurrent design, linking home and farm space,
entices the audience to connect to the real source of this food. This visual correlation elevates
nature, and food consciousness, as part of the contemporary dining experience.
PRESENTATION VESSELS:
To encourage a wider cultural embrace of local food I use the vegetables themselves as a tool
for conceptual communication. The presentation vessels in my show display carrots, onions,
and kale: three vegetables that are in abundance during the spring months, the growing season
of my exhibition. Similar to the experience of gourmet food presentation, the true beauty of
these vegetables is revealed through purposeful arrangement. The vases and vegetables in
Close to Home could exist independently of one another in the home space, but the design
allows for a visual completion when the two are united.
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Perhaps the most visually dominant of the three presentation vessels, the Kale Vases
are the literal cornerstones of the show (figure 3). Both on the farm and in the exhibition, kale
plants occupy a lot of space. With their multiple openings and grand scale the Kale Vases are a
direct reference to the historic ceramic tulipiere. Where traditionally the drooping beauty of
tulips would be celebrated at the center of a room, the kale becomes the main feature of this
home setting. Like the gravitational pull on the tulip, the languid and outstretched leaf pattern
of the kale plant itself is mirrored in its arrangement.
Another reference to the plant is apparent through the connection of the vessel to its
display. Situated on top of rough-‐sawn white pedestals, the Kale Vase’s narrow, vertically
striped base brings the viewer’s attention to the foot of the vessel and the enclosed soil it rests
upon. Sandblasted lines on the transparent top point inward, directing all attention to the
interaction between the rooted bottom of the Kale Vase and soil from which it appears to
grow. This visual mimicry of the kale plant gives the viewer a glimpse of its natural beauty and
encourages them to consider the space for this particular vegetable in their home.
Situated on long shelves, the Carrot and Onion Vases also rely on the plants’ natural
appearance as part of their design (figure 4). Grown in tight little rows, carrots and onions are
root and bulb vegetables, meaning the part of the plant that we eat grows beneath the ground
and out of view. Where we may be able to tell the ripeness of a tomato on a vine through its
color, or the readiness of a head of cabbage through its size, the root vegetables rely on a
deeper sense of intuition, which typically comes from experience. To mimic this feeling of visual
inaccessibility, the ceramic vessels each hold two small cast glass vases. The translucent quality
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of the glass provides a transition between the “underground” space and the “above ground”
space of the plant (figure 5) giving the viewer a literal “glass window” in to the beauty hidden
below the ground. To extend this metaphor, the shelf and vases are, literally, grounded through
the use of a rich soil-‐brown wall color. The top of this color field acts as a connection between
all twelve vases and provides contrast to the vertically striped feet. Upon closer inspection,
these stripes also act as a rooting system, bringing the attention to the soil-‐filled shelf below
(figure 6).
Lastly, the setting for the above ground space of the Carrot and Onion Vases is also
designed to relate to the domestic interior. The repetitive upward reaching vegetables have a
purposeful visual relation to a candelabra framed on the wall. This strategy of framing beautiful
objects is a distinctly human inclination. A subtle shift in the reflectivity of the paint behind the
vessels creates a quiet enclosure that, like a candelabrum, brings the natural element of light in
to the display. The glossy reflection of the frame relates to the glass topped shelves and can
only be perceived from certain vantage points throughout the show. This subtle element of the
display becomes a space for discovery, much like uncovering the true length of a carrot as you
pull it out of the ground.
THE TABLE
Supported by the surrounding presentation vessels, the dining table was positioned at
the true center of the show. Designed to reference a rustic wooden farm table, the table in the
exhibit is modernized through clean design. Beveled edges, tapered legs, and white paint make
this table a sophisticated place of display. The centerpiece is a permanent glass-‐topped recess
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of enclosed soil that occupies the middle the table. Hidden beneath the soil is a series of seven
small vases that, when the table is set, hold an assortment of spring vegetables from the farm
(figure 7). Like the presentation vessels around it, this table is truly complete when the food is
present.
The design of this centerpiece purposefully alludes to a more expansive vision of what
the fields of vegetables look like at Swallowtail Farm. Unlike the traditional practices of mass
agriculture, where thousands of acres of land are occupied by the same crop, the small scale of
this biodiverse farm resembles more of a large-‐scale garden. With parallel rows that shift from
one plant variety to another, the vegetables transform their landscape into a striped
kaleidoscope of changing colors and shapes. As the occupant of the center-‐space of the whole
exhibit, this view of the biodiverse farm is transformed into décor. By looking as if they grow
directly out of the table, the medley of vegetables become unmistakably integrated with, and
inseparable from, the dining experience (figure 8).
The final element on the table is a carefully made set of handbuilt dinnerware. Each
place setting features one small bowl stacked on top of one small plate. Like the presentation
vessels around them, each place setting features repeated and wrapped stripes, designed to
draw attention in towards the vegetables in the centerpiece. The squared points of the vessels
are a softer translation of the painted rectangle they rest upon; and the white glaze allows the
pots to occupy the same visual status as the tabletop. This shared status is not an affront to the
importance of the dishes; rather it is a suggestion that the tabletop, the painted rectangular
place setting, and tableware are united in their elevation of the vegetables.
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Although the tableware in the exhibit does not actively contain food, the neutral palette
and defined rim are choices for the future of these pots. A simple bisecting line, and calmly
repeated stripes mimic a horizon view of the farm. A purposeful switch from black to grey
stripes keeps the decoration from dominating the food that will one day be served on these
plates. The black-‐line rim frames the food while in use. The hand quality of these raised and
tactile lines is also important to the overall message of this dinnerware set. The purposeful
irregularity in the line-‐work invites closer investigation and exposes the human imperfection in
the process of making pots by hand. This valuing of natural variation, is all but lost in todays
mechanized production of both tableware and food. This dining table addresses the beauty that
can be found in the physical traces of working by hand.
BEYOND THE GALLERY
The feeling of crouching, bundling, cradling, and carrying vegetables is a major part of
the physicality of growing food. Placed at the entrance to the exhibit, a series of postcards use
photographs I took at the farm to evoke these feelings of physical labor (figure 9). Four unique
card designs feature a close up of a human hand holding vegetables or workers in the field. This
inclusion of the actual people who cultivate the farm is a way of further addressing the
humanity in this entire slow farming process (figure 10). The backside of each card presents
images of the vessels in the show and a tear off wallet-‐sized schedule of local farmers markets
(figure 11). In conjunction with the cards, a display of refrigerator magnets featuring twenty-‐
four different images from the farm was placed at the exit of the exhibit (figure 12). These cards
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and magnets were offered to the audience as a tangible reminder that joy of participating in
your local food system is as close as a trip to the local market.
EMBRACING OUR TRUE HOME
When I titled my thesis exhibition Close to Home it was, of course, intended to reference
the domestic spaces we live in, as well as evoke the comfort we find within them. However, on
a more theoretical plain, I believe our true home is so much more expansive than our domestic
spaces. Our true home is everything that exists within the collective moment that we live. It is
our shared seasons and our years, it is the passion of our relationships and the strength of our
communities; it is the truth that can only be found by becoming aware of the preciousness of
daily life that beats within each of our hearts. My thesis exhibition impresses, in a visual way,
that there is genuine pleasure to be found in slowing down to reconnect to this ever-‐changing
world that we live in. This reconnection to the true nature and physicality of our lives has one
core truth: quality over quantity. This is the same truth that exists for many people in the
handmade pottery and sustainable food movement.
It is so exciting that I am not alone in this desire to elevate thoughtfulness towards food
in a country that has extensively taught us to blindly consume more and more. With the
creation of Close to Home, I am just one of many contemporary potters actively working to
encourage this shift in awareness. The photographs of “pots-‐in-‐use,” popularized by Ayumi
Horie (figure 13), playfully record the magic that can happen when just a moment of attention
is given to our daily interactions with food. Additionally, the vessels made by potters like Kip
O’Krongly and Kowkie Durst use of imagery on tableware to expose the darker side of our
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industrial food culture. Drawings of boxed food products (figure 14) and crop dusting planes
(figure 15) use tableware as a direct space for political commentary on our current food system.
While these pots are absolutely effective in their message, it is my desire to continue using the
physically combined beauty of handmade pottery and local food as an interactive tool; one
capable of providing joy and value in our daily lives. In the words of Michael Pollan, “To eat with
a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake might sound like a burden, but in practice, few
things in life can afford quite as much satisfaction.” xiv The pleasure of eating is only deepened
by knowing.
_________________________________ i (Moss, 2013) ii (Pollan, 2009) iii (Pollan, 2009) iv (CDC, 2013) v (CDC, 2013) vi (Kamp, 2008) vii (Petrini, 2007) viii (Petrini, 2007) ix (Kamp, 2008) x (Ackerman-‐Leist, 2012) xi (Moss, 2013) xii (Knowles, 2010) xiii ("Local harvest”) xiv (Pollan, 2009)
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FIGURES
Figure 1
Figure 2
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Figure 3
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figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
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figure 7
figure 8
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figure 9
figure 10
28
figure11
29
figure 12
figure 13
figure 14
30
figure 15
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TECHNICAL STATEMENT
The handbuilt vessels I created for my exhibition were made with a white cone 6 stoneware clay
body. An elaborate series of bisque and plaster molds served as a support system during the building of
these pots. Each vessel went through a number of steps before completion; beginning with an extensive
series of sketches on tracing paper. I then used paper templates as a doorway into three dimensional
desgin. Once ready, these templates were then incized on to a plaster slab. This slab was then used as a
printing surface, where I painted oxides and colored slips. The colors and stripes would then be
transferred on to the clay by laying a fresh slab onto the plaster and carefully rolling until the slip was
attached to the surface of the clay. Finally, the clay slab would be slowly peeled up, cut out, and used to
build the vessels. Once built, the pots were bisque fired, sprayed with a satin glaze, and fired to cone six
in an electric kiln, scheduled with a controlled cool to 1500 degrees.
The glass vessels in the show were created with a traditional glass casting technique called Pate
de Verre. To employ this technique I built a small clay model of the glass vase, sized exactly to the
opening of the fired ceramic vessel. Once these were leather hard, I used silica, plaster, water and
fiberglass mesh to create a mold of the form that could be fired in a kiln. Once the molds were
complete, glass frits from Bullseye glass company were mixed with glue and packed to the walls of the
mold in three consecutive layers. Once the mold was dry, powedered talc was introduced into the void
of the mold and the glass was fired to 1420 degrees with a very controlled firing and cooling schedule.
Using this technique allowed me to make glass vases that nestled perfectly into the fired ceramic
vessels.
The furniture for the instillation was made predominanly out of recyled poplar wood. Each piece
was planed and then roughsawn on a bandsaw to give the surface a feel of age and use. The furniture
was then saturated with a deep brown/grey stain. The table top and pedestals were roughly coated with
a flat white paint. The wall shleves and table legs were left unpainted as a way to tie them to the
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ground. Pinstripe making tape was used as a resist to create the rectangular place settings. These
settings were then given a subtle highlight with a coat of gloss polyacrylic. Once assembed, the void of
each piece of furniture was filled with orgainic soil. The pedestals, wall shelves and table were then
fitted with a plexiglass top that had been hand stiped and sandblasted to create translucent lines.
The vegetables from Swallowtail Farm were planted by hand and tended with great patience
and enthusiasm.
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LIST OF REFERENCES
Ackerman_Leist, P. (2012). Rebuilding the foodshed: How to create local, sustainable, and secure food systems. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing CDC. (2013, 02 19). Childhood obesity facts. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm Kamp, D. (2008). The united states of arugula, the sun dried, cold pressed, dark roasted, extra virgin story of the american food revolution. Broadway. Knowles, L., & , (2010). Local food nation [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c-‐JXm28ZMU Local harvest. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.localharvest.org/search.jsp?jmp&scale=8&lat=29.648924&lon=-‐82.30474&ty=6 Moss, M. (2013, 02 20). The extraordinary science of addictive junk food. New York Times . Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-‐extraordinary-‐science-‐of-‐junk-‐food.html?pagewanted=all Petrini, C. (2007). Slow food nation. New York, NY: Random House. Pollan, M. (2009). The omnivore's dilemma, a natural history of four meals. New York: Penguin Group USA. Pollan, M. (2009, 9 2). Wendell berry’s wisdom. Retrieved from http://www.thenation.com/article/wendell-‐berrys-‐wisdom
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BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT
Having grown up in a New Jersey suburb, just outside of New York City, my backyard garden played a major role in my childhood understanding of food. My relationship to food is just a little bit older than my relationship to using clay pots as support for my meals. Over the years this fascination with how and what we eat has lead me to conferences, workshops, artist residencies and graduate school. It has placed me in the role of teacher and student and has lead me into both the library and my community. My love of clay and food has undoubtedly shaped my personal philosophy, which rests inside the contemporary dialogue of encouraging ethical and sustainable production for all that we create. I believe that any individual or collaborative steps we can take to move towards a system of production that is local, seasonal and more in tune with the rhythm of our planet, the healthier the world will be.
