Horsehair Bowl: Natural Cycles and Creativity

Artist Statement

This piece leverages understandings of clay porosity to represent carbon’s role in silicate weathering and show how carbon interacts physically (and chemically) with clay bodies. The carbon cycle is intrinsically linked to the silicate weathering cycle and thereby the clays that we work with. The carbon cycle can exist within the silicate weathering cycle, which is shown in this piece by the jagged streaks of carbon that run throughout the clay body in place of any glaze coating. CO2 enters the system through volcanic outgassing (and from anthropogenic sources). This CO2 can then end up in coexistence with large volumes of water and feldspar, which produces the initial clay forming reactions of the silicate weathering cycle. These involve some form of feldspar (albite, anorthite, or orthoclase), water, and acids (or at least the carbon to form carbonic acid later), producing clays, a variety of ions, acids, and bicarbonates. Bicarbonates are brought into the watershed and sometimes exit the system again as CO2, or they can end up bonding with other ions such as calcium, creating limestones and sinking carbon back into the lithosphere. The carbon cycle is closely related to rock cycles and silicate weathering, and this bowl aims to highlight how interconnected these systems are. The carbon streaks were formed from singeing horsehair onto the bowl at temperatures of about 1,000 degrees Celsius. The piece must be porous for the carbon in the horsehair to end up adhering to the bowl so the piece must be fired at a low temperature to maintain the clay body’s porosity. The porosity enables the burns and smoke to penetrate and remain in the clay. I made many attempts at making bowls of this size and had to refine my approach through repeated failure. The biggest shift that helped me find success was slowing my wheel speed while lifting. My creative process became iterative where I discovered meaning and intention step by step and didn’t always find the full intent prior to beginning the physical creation of a piece. With this piece, I wanted to merge functionality with meaning.

Horsehair pottery is closely tied to the Indigenous people of the Southwest and was traditionally used to commemorate loved ones or to honor horses. The forms used are usually functional vessels in that tradition and it felt pertinent to pay attention to that in this context. For that reason, I set out to make a big bowl that could hold fruits and vegetables. I also chose micaceous clay to connect the origins of the clay (from the lithosphere to surface reactions) closer to the final form, showing the intersectionality between human creativity and the natural world. It also has very high porosity, meaning it would be receptive to absorbing the horsehair application. This piece weaves together threads of history with elements of the natural world to represent a picture of how scientific systems and artistic thought inform and weave between each other.