Materiality
My interest in incorporating porcelain and glass with rubber started when I felt the need for my work to be buffered and protected. Unlike a ceramic glaze that tends to smother a form with a hard glassy surface, I craved opposing characteristics of a soft and pliable surface that could be touched, handled, and even jiggled and bounced. Rubber is known for it’s physical resiliency, and undeniably resembles the tactile surface and pliable sensibilities of human skin. Intrigued with rubber’s material associations to the manufactured, my intention evolved beyond the formal aspects, to giving these objects their own membrane to protect their internal body from the external environment, partially containing them.
A second skin, this barrier of rubber, undeniably relates to today’s contemporary reality of prophylactic necessities. As the fragility of these objects lessens with this buffer layer, the viewer’s material interpretation is confused. Understanding the preciousness of the fragile porcelain contradicts the resilient flexibility of the pliable rubber. Longevity also becomes an interesting dynamic, as rubber, with long-term exposure to daylight will break down and decay. This material resiliency becomes an ironic contrast, comparing porcelain that can out last generations of human life, supported by an ephemeral material that will eventually break down and crumble in my lifetime.
