The title of this exhibition suggests the ephemeral, the fugitive, things elusive, which resist the human urge to capture and define. The French Impressionists were so named partly for their attempts to create a visual language which could convey the fleeting qualities of light, the movement of a breeze as it passed over a field of grain, the ripple of waves on the surface of the ocean. Paint offers myriad possibilities for suggestion, giving the painter considerable flexibility in his or her efforts to portray such transient moments. The craftsperson, or in more contemporary parlance, the designer maker, is faced with a much more difficult task, working with solid, all too tangible materials which by their very nature contradict the fleeting moments of the moving landscape. The work in this exhibition utilises traditional craft materials – glass, wood, metal, and clay – in a broadly expressive range of styles to attempt to interpret the themes offered by the title.
Peta Cowen Goh's sensuous glass pieces, My favourite forms: secrets shiny and new 2 , are elegant renditions of the beach pebble. The smooth, flat, rounded forms of pebbles tossed and worn by wave and sand are created from blown, cut and polished glass. Rather than displaying them flat, as they would be on a beach, they stand vertically. The dark inner core encased within a clear outer layer offer shapes within shapes as the viewer moves around them. The illusion of movement echoes the ebb and flow of the waves and shifting patterns on the sand at water's edge. Two of the pieces have been sandblasted, the resulting opaque surface providing an interesting contrast to the shine of the remaining three.
Peta Cowen Goh, 'My favourite forms: secrets shiny and new 2 ',
2004, blown, cut, polished, sandblasted glass. Photo:Debbie Pryor
Wait until dark #1, #2 and #3 , are quite literal responses to the light element of the exhibition. Alison Arnold has created a trio of table lamps, their shades formed from cast porcelain slip mounted on an aluminium base. The aluminium is a useful foil for the porcelain, being so neutral as to almost not be there, leaving the shades to appear float in the air. Being used as a filter for the light within enhances the extreme delicacy of the porcelain. This is a challenging and difficult medium with which Arnold demonstrates clear mastery. The rectangular forms have a soft organic slump, with rounded edges, the light enhancing surface textures created by the use of fabric in the casting process. They could be paper bags, or stiffened fabric shades – there is a very pleasing dichotomy between conventional expectations and the reality of these pieces.
Alison Arnold,'Wait until dark #1' 2004, cast porcelain and steel,
310 x 210mm. Photo:Debbie Pryor
With a very formal shift in approach, Christian Hall has created an intriguing plywood work. Event Surface Study #1 is an intricate piece of fine joinery. The centre of the panel has been sectioned into small triangles, re-joined with fine beading so they can be articulated into an irregular, undulating surface within the flat plane of the surrounding edge. The piece is suspended and lit from above, allowing creation of patterns of light below through the joins between the triangular sections of the broken surface. While earth is not an included element in this exhibition theme, this piece reminded me of images of fractured roadways after earthquakes – broken upheavals where we had tried to impose regularity upon a natural surface. There is a striking tension between the uniformity of the triangular pieces and the uneven surface created by manipulating the joinery. Hall contrasts the formality of this piece with his whimsical Plane Lamp – a small boy's dream! This faintly sinister black plane is suspended from a pair of gently spiralling wires taking it in a nosedive downwards toward the earth.
Christian Hall, 'Event Surface Study #1',2004, formal study plywood
300 x 1200 x 9mm 'Plane Lamp'Anodised Aluminium, porcelain, halogen lamp, 250 x 270mm. Photo:Debbie Pryor
Mistsue Slattery offers us another contradiction in perceptions. Her leaf forms, entitled When a wind blows , are a direct reference to the wind and the seasonal changes to the vegetation. The five different surface treatments of the metals used suggest the transition though the seasons, culminating in the leaf drop of autumn. The permanence of metal as a medium for the ephemeral autumn leaf is not a new concept, but it is one that continues to amuse me as a faintly perverse choice. The addition of fish scales contained within two of the pieces adds an interesting narrative quality to Slattery's concept raising the idea of the distances things may travel when borne on the wind. I was reminded of the sight, while travelling once in rural Victoria , of a white plastic shopping bag being blown along at a quite significant height from the ground – it could have come from anywhere and could land, or not, some distance from it's origins. Slattery's four remaining pieces, Water Dancing III , are noted in the sales catalogue as ‘wearable objects'. Worked, folded and chased fine metal, these large pieces resemble slices of ocean swell, the slightly oily slick created by a gentle breeze far out to sea.
The fifth designer maker in this group, Bettina Visentin, offers a concept in glass of the effects of the weather on solid objects. Erode , Subduction and Suspended Friction are all large, organic, solid glass forms which have been blown then cold worked and carved. Once again, I was caught in the restrictions of the ‘don't touch' rule of galleries – emphasised by the Jam Factory's cabinetry in Gallery Two. These luscious, rounded forms with sensuous carved surfaces offered an almost tangible invitation to stroke and hold. Each has a small cavity holding one or more marble sized balls - little pebbles in a rock pool waiting for a lucky child to discover them and take them home.
This is a very interesting, aesthetically pleasing collection of new work. Curator Debbie Pryor has sourced craftspeople working in both media and styles which are appropriate to the theme of the exhibition. Recent readings in craft theory however, raise for me the question of the place for many of these works. Christian Hall's Plane Lamp is a conceptual take on a utilitarian object which would have little practical use due to the low wattage of the globe and possible safety restrictions against installing anything brighter due to the design. It lacks the overall size to create ‘mood lighting', as is eminently possible with Alison Arnold's porcelain lamps. However, this is not to diminish either the concept or workmanship of the piece – rather to question just where the more experimental range of craft/design work might best be situated. Both Peta Cowen Goh and Bettina Visentin have produced glass pieces of a decorative nature. They have no purpose – within the parameters of what is has been understood to be an integral element in the definition of the craft piece. So are they ‘art', rather than craft? If so, should they be more correctly shown in a gallery space not specifically designated as a craft and design centre, as has been the umbrella for the Jam Factory since it's inception. I do not have the answers to these questions, but found myself discussing them after my recent review of Glenys Hodgeman's exhibition ‘Gifthorse' in which, as in this exhibition, many of the works utilised traditional craft techniques and materials, but were not craft ‘objects' in any conventional sense. This seems to be an increasing trend in some areas of craft and design and it is possibly timely to start re-examining the exhibition spaces in conjunction with much of this new work.
Karen Finch is an Adelaide-based artist and writer currently completing a Masters Degree in Art History and Curating at Adelaide University
Last modified 24-Feb-2005
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