Peripatetic Making: A borrowed space, time continuum

Abstract

Reflecting on experiences of working in different places, Cummings considers aspects of her approach to working with clay and the ways in which her practice shifts. From the Arctic to Hawaii, factory to museum, Cummings explores how the separate characteristics of these environments have informed her work and processes, and the continuity within her practice as a whole.

Keywords:

• time
• detail
• reconstruct
• labor
• fluency
• doubt
• plasticity

Notes

¹ For a discussion between makers at the Kohler factory in Wisconsin and a small group of historians/curators including Ethan W. Lasser, Glenn Adamson, Ezra Shales, David Gates, Tavs Jorgensen, Beth Lipman, Kate Smith, and Michael Eden see Ethan W. Lasser, “Factory Craft: Art and Industry in Conversation,” Journal of Modern Craft 6(3) (November 2013). See also Ezra Shales, “Mass Production as an Academic Imaginary (or, if more must be said of Marcel ‘Evacuating Duchampian Conjecture in the Age of Recursive Scholarship’),” Journal of Modern Craft 6(3) (November 2013).

² J. G. Ballard, The Drowned World (New York: Berkley Books, 1962), p. 105.

³ George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant,” New Writing (Autumn 1936).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Phoebe Cummings

Phoebe Cummings creates highly detailed, temporary sculptures and environments from clay. The work is often built directly on site, and where possible, the same clay is reclaimed and reused at different locations. Over the past eight years she has worked without a permanent studio space, often developing work through residencies, or using the gallery space as a temporary workshop. In 2008 she was awarded an Arts/Industry residency at the Kohler Co. factory, and was Ceramics artist-in-residence at the Victoria & Albert Museum, 2010. She was the winner of the British Ceramics Biennial Award in 2011 and was Ceramics Fellow at Camden Arts Centre, 2012/13.