|
BOY
WONDER: by
Mandy Ginson The
Ceramics of Darren Emenau Scientists
call it magical thinking, the unique and supremely imaginative ways
in which children make sense of the world around them. For most,
this ability is lost over time, displaced by other ways of seeing and
doing. Once lost, forgotten. Unless you’re Darren Emenau. As
a child, Emenau had ample room to roam. Growing up in the undeveloped
reaches of southern New Brunswick, Canada, his youth was
largely occupied with walking the shores of the Kennebecasis River,
combing the fields, peering under rocks and poking in the mud.
Here, a sense of wonder was fixed and stuck. After
completing a biology degree at Concordia University in Montréal,
he returned to his home province and studied ceramics at the
New Brunswick College of Craft and Design. Since graduating nine
years ago, Emenau lives and works with his artist girlfriend in Jones
Creek, 60 kilometers from where he grew up. Free
to roam once more, Emenau has discovered solid ground to
foot his ideas and work. He largely focuses on the production of multifired
one-offs. Imbued with a ruddy reverence for the natural world,
his work imparts a now quieted sense of wonder, succeeded by an eye bent to beauty in unexpected places.
Detail
of a covered jar made from local Cone 06 earthenware
with MNO Lichen Glaze. Ceramics
Monthly March 2007 In
his practice, Emenau starts at the very beginning: with the clay hauled
from New Brunswick riverbeds, Emenau notes that his clay is harder
to work than most, but perhaps if a natural aesthetic is the end goal,
no harder than trying to coax coarseness from porcelain. Emenau
hand forms pots on a kick wheel, which he says allows him
to be more in tune with his work. He tries to keep the clay loose and
fluid as he works, noting that he doesn’t want to impose himself on
the clay but rather tries to allow the clay to be what it wants to be. Form
is dictated by a certain affinity for aberration. Beauty for Emenau
is in the imperfect, the impermanent and the imprecise. Vases
have a slight tilt, and an erratic line is drawn between lids and their
bodies. Hours spent observing the natural world have supplied Emenau
with a taste for the variation and diversity found in nature. The
work, however, is not sloppy by any stretch. Fine, attenuating limbs
are in perfect balance with ample bodies. The eye of an intelligent designer
has been turned here. Texture
takes on an important role in Emenau’s recent work. Impurities, such
as twigs and stones, are not removed but rather retained to
effect unique markings and interesting surfaces. The roughed-up, worn
exteriors convey a rich sense of history. This is not by chance. Individual
works have been fired up to eight or nine times. History is
not imitated but created. Emenau is a self-professed glaze fanatic. As
he increasingly exploits this knowledge, the glaze is used not as mere
surface decoration but the surface itself. Emenau experiments with
applying successive layers of glaze and refiring. The results, he admits,
might be irreproducible, but the intent here is not to make models
but rather to unearth possibilities. The
thick crusts, pocked surfaces and acidic earthy colors in “Lichen,”
the most recent body of work to exit the studio, closely resemble
the natural formations they are inspired by. The
jugs, bud vases and bowls, in their simple but solid shape, team
a roughed-up classical form with a rugged organic minimalism. The
“Oil Can” is from an unknowable time: some farmer’s unwanted
fruit, the tinman’s discarded stage prop, the yield of a favored
roadside ditch. In
the Lichen series, a certain sense of layered narrative is staged,
Above:
Sake Set, to 41.. in. (11
cm) in height. Below: Tea Set,
to 6 in. (15 cm) in height. Both
are local earthenware, fired
to Cone 06. Ceramics Monthly March 2007
“Bud
Vase,” 5 in. (13 cm) in height, local earthenware, with
MNO Lichen Glaze, fi red to Cone 06. opportunities
for discovery in his work. Currently he is experimenting with
glazes developed from indigenous rocks. Quartz, limestone
and granite are crushed with mortar and pestle, then further
refined with the aide of a sieve. Additionally,
he just completed work on a new wood-fired kiln,
modeled after an Olsen fast fire. In using local clay and local
glazes, and working with a kiln fired by local wood, Emenau
brings his practice full circle and has, in effect, created a
unique record of place. Emenau’s
work is simple in the smartest of ways. In breaking the
universe down to its smallest bits and coming to understand the
nature, identity and composition of each of these bits, Emenau
is able to make sense of a complex world. His work continues
to stir the imagination and supplies viewers with a renewed
opportunity to fully experience the natural world and all
of its inherent wonders. recipe MNO
LICHEN (Cone
06) Borax
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24.7 % Lithium
Carbonate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 Magnesium
Carbonate . . . . . . . . . . .39.2 Frit
3134 (Ferro) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Nepheline
Syenite . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23.7 100.0
% Add:
Copper Carbonate . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 % Bentonite
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 % Below:
“Ellie Euer,” 4 in. (10 cm) in height, local earthenware, with MNO Lichen Glaze, fi red to Cone 06; detail at right.
This
recipe was inspired by low-fire recipes by Lana Wilson. I brush
it on in various thicknesses. Some of the glaze can flake off
during firings. After firing, I scrape or sand blast the surface to remove
any loose glaze. I rub bees wax into some areas and then torch
it to remove most of the wax. Forms are often multifi red. A
nepheline syenite wash will prevent fl aking during firings. My local
clay contains a high percentage of iron oxide and salt crystals, which
act as strong fluxes. To
see more images of works by Darren Emenau’s, visit www.mnopottery.com. http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org/currentissue.asp
|
||||
