My Love of Clay The magic behind the material’s enduring appeal
“I started taking pottery lessons in high school and was totally obsessed after the first class,” says Victoria Morris, Founder of Victoria Morris Pottery based in Los Angeles. “I love the combination of the tactile, highly focused mental and physical experience of throwing, with the immediate gratification afterward of having made a functional object from a ball of clay.”
Morris is expressing a sentiment shared by many artisans; indeed, clay is one of our most ancient and loved materials.
Auckland-based sculptor Gidon Bing, is also a fan of clay’s immediacy. He creates deceptively simple, reductionist, works of art using experimental processes, represented in a select range of ceramic, metal and print works. “Concept to realisation can happen very rapidly, which is great for spontaneous conceptual work as well as rapid prototyping of more complex forms,” he says. “And I love its capacity for endless variation both in methods of construction, material and glaze and finish.”
Some of the material’s characteristics are just as appealing to users as makers, according to Bing, such as “its foundation in antiquity and our cultural heritage”. Morris goes further. “I think all handmade pottery is imprinted with the energy of the maker, and it’s that very quality that I believe translates into the unique feeling one gets when they hold handmade work of any kind. I love that there’s always an element of surprise with small studio pottery - the firings are all unique and different, so it’s virtually impossible to make any two pieces look the same.”
But raw material must be worked with the right process, and both are inspired by traditional manual craft. Bing’s creations combine this with a distinctly modern approach. “My steam wood bending methods and plaster model and mould making techniques are very traditional, but I often complement them with methods like laser cutting and 3D printing - this enables me to produce forms that have the tactility and boldness of hand-crafted objects with the precision that’s sometimes required for forms or objects that have human function.”
For her part, Morris creates her pieces uniquely by hand. “Every single piece is thrown on the wheel, trimmed, glazed and fired by me,” she says. “So I’d say each piece is quite personal and one of a kind.”
Morris’s and Bing’s works feature in store alongside charming, organically shaped pieces by Mt. Washington Pottery, geometric vases as part of Lane Crawford global exclusive collections and architecture-inspired creations by L’Objet. These beautiful ceramics will perfectly complement the showcase at Lane Crawford ifc mall by fashion industry veteran Leena Similu, a Lane Crawford Creative Call Out finalist from Los Angeles. Similu's studio Yaya Situation produces ceramic pieces inspired by her childhood summers amid the exotic landscapes of Cameroon.