PAMELA MILLER

ARTIST STATEMENT:

I hand-built small ceramic sculptures. They are glazed and fired in an electric kiln. Some are monochrome and others have groups of colours, most have several glazes. I have come to ceramics after making sculpture in many materials and at different scales. The small scale of my ceramic works seems to capture an intensity and concentrated essence, to me they are talismans and signals. Each piece has a unique complexity of shape and surface. Each has its own voice and story to tell.

This variety is important when my work is grouped together. Within the abstraction there is influence and inspiration from the natural environment and my own feelings and psychological states. Each sculpture is unfamiliar yet carries a reminder of an idea or intuitive state. Each is a mystery, an evocation of a feeling, phenomena or process. I try to allow the unplanned and unexpected to emerge during the making and be considered equal to the planned idea.

Some works represent a small fragment of a huge natural phenomena, others an enlargement of a microscopic place. Some look like architectural models and convey a feeling imagined as if inside a space like this in the actual world.

Glazing these sculptures is challenging and complex. I experiment with different clays, slips, engobes and glazes and treat each work as a unique glazing project. These complex forms each present a different task which requires a different strategy. I often use many glazes to try to create a complex and detailed surface which does not overwhelm the form but lets it be seen in an expressive way.

The ceramic process is a metamorphosis and my works embody this process and its parallels in natural geological phenomena. It symbolises the mutability of matter. Clays and glazes are a collection of elements dug from our planet and represent the role of these elements in the structure of our world and the life upon it. In my imagination they represent all the elements from which the universe is formed and our physical connection to this vast phenomenon, through their presence in our bodies and the environment we move through.

My work is a romantic expression, they are symbols of concentrated feeling and imagination inspired by our lives in this century and this place. Their size makes them a quiet reminder to have close by, a transport into another imaginary sphere.