Art Work

 

Debbie Baxter's bowl and jug for the Washing of the Feet on Holy Thursday

Please read a letter explaining the process in the making of the bowl and jug.

28 th February 2006

Dear Father Peter,

When you receive this piece of unique ceramic I would like you to reflect upon and consider the processes which have been undertaken to bring it to fruition.

When you first spoke to me, you had been introduced to me as an expert. This was not entirely true and I am sorry if you were misled. I agreed to take on the commission. I had originally wanted to produce a thrown piece as a bowl and attended many night school classes with this in mind. The size of the bowl required, made it almost impossible for someone of such scant experience to fulfil that requirement and I changed my plan to making a mould and using the press moulding process. I decided to use an Italian dish as a proforma. A plaster cast was made and to reduce distortion smaller pieces of clay were joined together. When the clay dries it shrinks and also when it is fired it shrinks again.

I was conscious that the capacity of the bowl was important and that I might find the bowl was now too small. This difficulty was partly overcome by the idea of widening the rims in an extending style of overlapping leaves of clay. After returning from holiday, I retained the image of clear water with sea anemones, I wanted the bowl to have a sandy, rockpool effect. I explored the idea of using melted glass to signify water in the bowl, but changed to gloss glaze, just around the feet and kept the contrast of the matt glaze to the rest of the piece.

The jug is far simpler style and more traditional. It was made in three pieces, two of which were thrown on the wheel and joined and the third being the handle which was extruded and then attached. The glazes on both pieces were done at the same time and fired in the same kiln but the incidental markings on the jug resulting from the high temperature firing and the thickness of the glaze have made an additional colour to the base area of the jug.

Both pieces are entirely unique and indeed should I wish to repeat either one, I would not be able to produce an exact copy.

I hope you will be able to use and enjoy both pieces for many years, whether they suit the original purpose or become an item to auction for the church funds. I cannot thank you sufficiently for the opportunity to develop my own skills and try new techniques in the direction of self discovery and creation of art. A very big thankyou for St Bernadette's patronage.

Debbie