My process varies greatly depending on what I’m working on. If I’m making functional ware or vessels, my process is less oblique and much more linear and crystalline. I work toward an outcome and so there is a more physical, tangible aspect to it, more often than not, I’ll be making more than one piece and that’s repetitive and rhythmic. I do quite a bit of experimenting with regard to form, function, glaze, yet still try to keep the pieces authentically mine. Working on sculptural pieces or for an exhibition is entirely different. It’s much more opaque and there is quiet a bit of dreaming and reading, sitting with myself and wrestling with the concept and the legitimacy of it. I feel the weight of a body of work more, simply because it’s usually self referential and exposing. After wrestling with myself and my mind, I do some preliminary experiments, writing, drawing and one thing leads to another and suddenly I’m in a space of complete surrender and make work that I cannot even begin to explain where it comes from. There are times when I’ve made the first piece and it immediately makes sense, and other times I’ve made five or six sculptural pieces and I’ve thrown them away - I’m learning to resist this urge and keep them as reference, and have had to start again.
Source: DES SEN