At the start of this month we welcomed Grays School of Art MA students for a short residential trip which included some experimental pit firing and naked raku. The students’ practices span a wide variety of mediums and ideas with some working with clay for the first time whilst here. It was a joy to have this vibrant and enthusiastic cohort of artists working across our spaces supported by their dedicated and inspirational tutors David Blyth and Dr Jen Clarke. This blog provides a reflection of the students’ time here with the SSW team.
Words by Rowan Flint and Kirsty MacDonald, images by SSW, Rowan and Kirsty.
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We boarded the bus with bags and boxes of baked and material goodies. David Blyth donned his bus driver cap and took us on a beautiful scenic drive to the Scottish Sculpture Workshop. Though it was early, the day already promised to be extremely beautiful.
We arrived and were greeted by a digital lecture with Jackie Morris, the esteemed illustrator of the book ‘The Lost Words’, in collaboration with Robert McFarlane. She took us through her iterative drawing and wandering approaches and how she grappled with representing absence.
Afterwards, as part of the Community Making Space Thursday Making sessions, our class was invited to join Lumsden residents with developing the Lumsden picnic blanket. This session revolved around birds, inspired by Jackie’s beautiful illustrations and musings upon them. I remember Andrew working on a flamingo and David on a woodcock.
After a community lunch of bean stew made by Ruaridh and Aimee, we gathered for a health and safety briefing led by Amy Benzie. Our focus for the afternoon was on pit firing. Kerry and Max had made and transported a huge volume of blank pots for us to play with. Enormous thank you to them! Amy explained the process of applying organic materials to the surface of the pots and how we would leave them overnight to ‘cook’ in the pit fire.
And off we went with it! Frenzied brushing of salt waters on curves. Leaves, pinecones and hay crumpled onto surfaces and stuffed into the pot bellies. I wrapped a copper wire around mine and dunked it in a bucket of rust water I found outside. Godspower threw everything he had at it – with great joy, it seemed.
We wandered out to the fire and huddled in a chilly circle as the flames took hold. One by one, we piled in the pots and, in a sort of ceremony of the evening, we toasted their firing and our good health.
A cheery evening got underway. I set up the central making table in the shared studio with the means to make some nomadic lithographs and had an excellent time assembling the tin foil, vegetable oil and full-fat Coca-Cola. I was so excited when the first print pulled successfully that I just charged on. Molly, Miriam, David, Sara, Jen and Amy showed an interest so I did a little demo. Amy ended up creating her own litho plate and pulling a gorgeous series of prints from it. We hung our prints to dry on a little washing line I created under the table and called it a night.
Day 2
We gathered around the studio table for breakfast, coffee and insights into our experiences so far. We all had one thought in mind: the pit fire…
Amy had been up already to check on it and by the time we bounded outside, the pots were cool enough to extract. It was pure delight as we unwrapped the pit-fired gems revealing rosy reds, glimpses of inky greens and specklings of ash grey. We took them to buckets of water and almost ritualistically washed and waxed them together, ooh-ing and aah-ing over each other’s creations. Godspower’s was marvellous – like he had painted it. Lisa beamed as she photographed hers in a totemic formation in the little light box set up for us by Sam. Alex seemed delighted with her pot as the beeswax revealed hidden depths of colour. It was quite a magical morning.
Next up, the naked raku session which was fiery and exciting. Molly seemed thrilled with the burning materials and the smokey marks she was able to create on the surface of the roasting pot surface. Another SSW artist in residence, Juliana Capes, joined us for this session and brought string saturated in honey, salt water and various other alchemical potions for us to test out on our pots!
As the naked raku firing was nearing its end and lunch was on its way, the offer of a small adventure was raised. David had told us stories of a nearby quarry, just a 45 minute walk away, filled with Rhynie Chert—home to some of the world’s earliest plant fossils from the Devonian period! A wonderful and historic site right on our doorstep.
With my interest in plants and natural history, I had to see it. I invited others interested to join me, following careful instructions from Ruaridh and David. Alex, Godspower, Max, Molly and I left on our trip, bidding farewell to the others as they feasted and we packed some rations for the journey.
As we wandered down the path, Molly gleefully bounced as she saw her first highland coo! I foraged along the way, Max explored local nature through his camera lens, and we all gazed upon the beautiful and scenic surroundings. Initially, when we reached the site, we wondered what exactly to look for, but once we saw it, we realised it was all around us – a land of fossils. Godspower explored the quarry, climbing to the highest points and taking in the view, Alex marvelled at the beautiful colours of the fossils imprinted on the rocks, and we took some samples back for the others to see.
The journey was short, but we each enjoyed it thoroughly. It was a bonding experience, and as we returned, we gazed upon some mushrooms, which later became a metaphor for feeling grounded and connected to nature as we joined in on the CCS seminar that coincided with the experience we had on our journey.
A delicious lunch of pearl barley risotto, cooked by Sam, boosted us nicely into the afternoon’s seminar with Dr Jen Clarke. She had set us a rather challenging core concept to ponder: Material Agency – what does it mean? She recommended four separate texts for us to engage with (which included essays by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Donna Haraway, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi and Jane Bennett). We splintered off into pairs and little groups and wandered around the SSW grounds to read aloud, rearrange or respond to, in our own way, one of these texts. Kerry and I (Rowan) ended up ‘dancing around the subject’ – as in, reading it out loud whilst together in a somewhat interpretive waltz. Jo ripped up her text and collaged it back together, only to reveal it conveyed the same message as before.
Our discussion covered some extremely heavy ideas and questions about what position(s) of privilege we were making statements from when talking about ‘our role as artists’ within the realm of climate action, dark ecology and global politics. We talked about how clay, kilns, and, fundamentally, the elements of the earth itself are materials with agency – forces we can attempt to harness and control – but ultimately will act according to their own nature once the kiln door is closed.
We rounded off the conversation by highlighting our great fortune to have access to the amazing and environmentally considerate facilities at SSW in such a beautiful setting as Lumsden. Thank you to Jen, Amy, Liz, Sam, Ruaridh, Aimee, Sara and David for a really thoughtful and insightful small residency at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop. We would love to see you all again soon!
