Penelope Matheson
♦ Being a Taxonomic Key [1] for the Identification of Non-collaboration; or, A View from the Spiracle ♦
1a.1 Sitting in high citadel honing my practice [2] …………………………………………….. go to 2a.1
1b.2 Not sitting in high citadel honing my practice ……………………………………………. go to 5a.2
2a.1 Rapacity of nature green in tooth and claw present [3] ……………………………. go to 3a.1
2a.2 Rapacity of nature green in tooth and claw absent …………………………………. go to 5a.2
3a.1 Glaze as smooth and cold as a pumpkin rind present [4] …………………………. go to 4a.1
3a.2 Glaze as smooth as a pumpkin rind absent ………………………………………… go to 5a.2
4a.1 Place of hatred present [5] ………………………………………………………………… go to 5a.1
4a.2 Place of hatred absent ………………………………………………………………….. go to 5a.2
5a.1 Probably not collaboration
5a.2 Probably collaboration
To be continued. (Or not.)
………………………………………………………………….
[1] A taxonomic key is a series of paired statements that presents the user with a series of choices; by making the correct choice at each step, one is led to the identity of the specimen (or artist). This begs the question: What is a correct choice?
[2] I was accused of this by a visiting tutor because I didn’t want to join in with his performative collaboration.
[3] I spent my glittering youth looking for telltale holes in leaves and trying to raise caterpillars in rank-smelling jam jars; it was a solitary pastime. Now the caterpillar is a recurrent image in my work, signifying desire, consumption and the endless cycle of renewal and death.
[4] I use ceramic materials because they have a uniquely lustrous and satiny appearance and they are often the most appropriate medium to serve a particular concept. I am, in fact, totally infatuated with the medium—I even like the ‘chink’ that it makes when it clinks against itself. However, I am often amused by the contemptuous attitude that ceramics can evoke. Despite the high esteem that Grayson Perry currently enjoys, I encounter dismissive attitudes to ceramics frequently. It doesn’t put me off.
[5] When talking with a fellow student on the MFASP course about our personal approaches to art practise, she used the expression ‘you need to be in a place of hatred’. This describes exactly much of the process and emotion that I experience when working. No matter how well worked out the concept, how aptly contextualised or cogently argued, there will always come a moment when making a piece when I start to detest the work in progress. How this is resolved and the work carried through to a successful (or not) conclusion is the essence of my creative process. I cannot function without it and usually the sculpture tells me what to do; even if that is to destroy it and start again.
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Biography
I’m currently a student on the MFASP course at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. Previously I was out to grass on a remote croft in Colbost, north west Skye. I spend a lot of time breeding, photographing and, incidentally, occasionally sleeping with caterpillars. caterpillarsandwiches.wordpress.com