Fiona Mackay
1. During a trip back to the UK to visit family a couple of years ago, you visited London Craft Week, what did the craft scene feel like there? Did you see anything particularly exciting?
FM It was perfect timing to be there for London Craft Week, a celebration of exceptional craftsmanship, across many disciplines from the UK and internationally. I found it refreshing to look at the many other disciplines, materials and different processes, with so many incredibly skilled makers. I was able to visit lots of studios and have conversations with numerous makers. One of the things that resonated with me the most was the amount of women that had already had other careers as well as bringing up families, and had now found a second career as artists and craftspeople. Being in another city is always a great opportunity to saturate yourself in the amazing galleries and museums, one particular artists work that I found incredibly inspiring was Maria Bartuszová’s exhibition at the Tate Modern. A sculptor who had worked with plaster creating beautiful egg shell like structures and forms. Bound with wire, layered and stacked, carved and cut, while still leaving the marks of the tools behind. She dedicated her art to exploring relationships between people, nature, matters and form.
2. It was on this same trip you visited Lucinda with her daughters in Florence which became the spark for this show. What was it about this time together that inspired the feeling or direction of this show?
FM It is such a beautiful city and we had both spent time in Florence in our 20’s so the city was familiar as well as being very special to us both. We visited galleries and museums together, as well as independently, but were both drawn to the same references of the textures on the walls, carved pavings on the footpaths, the ancient patinas of the streets. The Archaeological Museum offered so much inspiration - the black Etruscan ceramics (Bucchero) and one particular piece of pierced copper jewellery that inspired us both. Morandi’s still life paintings and Lucio Fontana’s work at The Museo Novecento resonated with us both. There were so many conversations about the work and what we had seen, it was hard not to be drawn to bringing what we had seen together.
3. Creating installation works is an exciting development for you, moving further from your beginnings making only functional objects. What does it feel like to move into this area of experimentation in ceramics?
FM I still enjoy the process of making functional ware but have felt more and more drawn to making larger installation pieces. There are always certain restrictions with clay, which you can usually work around, but going large can be challenging, usually limited by kiln size. With this particular exhibition, I’ve been able to go larger by making multiples. Four of the works are collectively made up of over a 1000 tiles of various shapes and sizes. The challenges were to make sure that the clay was rolled out and cut at the same thickness and time so that the sizes wouldn’t vary too much after the firings. Getting the curve and placement of the hole in the chandelier drops took numerous attempts to get them to hang at the right angle - especially challenging was the drying and firing process. I love a good problem solving challenge and particularly enjoyed the process of making multiples to achieve these larger works.
4. You’ve been spending more and more time developing objects without the restrictions of functionality, does this feel like an important place to start creatively?
FM Most of the restrictions for functionality are usually in the final glazing of the ceramics, to make sure its food-safe and vitrified. With this exhibition I really wanted to focus on the surface treatment of the work. For me it was about the detail, texture and mark making - either by carving, poking holes or cutting into the clay. In Florence I became slight obsessed with the paving stones and walls - beautifully carved into with tools then worn down over time. To emphasise these textures I’ve either left the clay raw or used different slips and engobes. The textures encourage you to get close to the work - to really look at the mark making and to touch. My work is also usually very precise, something I’m really trying to relax on a bit! Most of the work for the show was hand built, much more organic - I wanted to embrace failure and to just keep going.
5. Is there anything about Lucinda, in her work or personality that has been inspiring for you as you work on this show together?
FM Working on this show with Lucinda was about friendship and the collective conversations we had during our time in Florence, and the time we have spent working together. We work in very different ways, but both love the process of making and learning new techniques, we even ended up doing a welding course together. I love her passion and vast knowledge of ancient history and female artists, as well as her love of astrology, myths and symbolism. Bringing our practices together has been about communication, problem solving and sharing.
Thanks Fiona!
Interviewed by Kristen Lindesay
Studio shots by Alexander Lindesay / Gallery shots by Masami Ono
