a foray into ceramic sculpture, an assistant remembered

I heard about a public art competition in the local press, Grand River Hospital was building a new wing,The Balsillie Family Building, an oncology centre. There was budget for a sculpture for the entry.

I had a great assistant, Scott Watterworth, a young man, just 20, who was born with tools in his hands. He had extensive experience in working with ceramics. He even had his own studio and kiln. It seemed to make sense to propose a ceramic sculpture. Perhaps I associate hospitals with echoing tiled surfaces? At any rate, without any experience in the medium, I made my pitch. Here's the digital maquette that I submitted:

A digital maquette made in Rhino 3D.

I created this drawing in Rhino v3, adding a decal to simulate the colour. I may have added a drawing, as I know that the surfaces and colours were to depict a figure rising up through the world, through nature, and perhaps on to some higher place. It was to be a symbol of hope. I wanted the opening, the rising figure, to rise out of an earthy place that featured a bit of a waterfall.

 We got the job. Scott and I were quite excited. Both of us had dreamed of some recognition as artists, as guys that did big work visible against the skyline. It was easy to see this as a first step. I'll talk more about my efforts in this direction another day. This day was a day of action. There was a deadline.

After drawing up a full size outline, Scott and I headed for his parents' home, into the basement. Starting with a big sheet of rolled clay, we transferred the design onto the wet clay and cut out the tiles.

The vertical element, rolled, cut and perhaps dried already.

The base tiles. Notice the dip at the bottom of the image, my sort of waterfall area. The tiles are sitting on a surface of plaster-surfaced styrofoam.

I could not believe how much that clay shrank! Was it more than 10%?  I guess we proceeded in the correct way: We did the ceramics first, all the way to firing. With all that shrink, there was no point to thinking about the base and structure until this was done.

The top tiles are fired and I'm ready to start thinking about the base structure.

We built a really solid plywood base, leaving room to add weights to keep the piece vertical, no matter what. I was plagued by images of wild kids swinging from the work, being crushed by a lovely metaphor, but literally.

The vertical support was double 3/4" ply. We glued the tiles down, covering all the plywood. The last thing was the covering of the edges and the base. For some inconceivable reason, I chose to warp Honduras Mahogany strips over the curvy edges and cover the base in more mahogany, including heavily radiused corners. Sigh. This took endless hours. I didn't want any fasteners showing.

The work did get shipped. It looked great.

I wound up calling it "Ad Lux Borealis" (Toward a Northern Light), a sort of meditation on that rising sense, the leaving of earth. The hospital did a great sign in sand-blasted glass featuring the title and both our names.

The finished piece. Nearly 7 feet high. Ceramic and Mahogany. This seems to have weathered the ravages of a public location without problems.

Scott Watterworth died at the age of 29. He had spent some years as a freelance artist, but this piece, according to his mother, was his favourite. The maquette was on display at the funeral. When I think of this work, I do think of Scott, his boundless, youthful energy, his unfettered creative drive.

I have played with ceramics in recent years, and would love to do more. Working in colour is a lovely change. And, somehow, I'd like to think that Scott lives on in that perfect relationship between clay and fire.