Saturday 3 February 2018

For Those Who Have Been Blessed By God

I thought long and hard before posting this, in face it has taken me a few years. Partly because I have been procrastinating, or been too busy running workshops, making new work, and networking; but mainly the reason was I do not wish to offend.
You have to be very careful what you post on the internet these days. People will have a visceral personal reaction to something you might consider an interesting dialogue, or even incocuous. In the 21st Century everyone belongs to a minority, whether it be right wing, left wing, religious, atheist, vegan, disabled, neurodiverse, black, brown or whatever. Everyone has the internet directly at their fingertips, living in the here and now, on the edge of emotion, with behavourial fillters swept away by anonymity.. allowing passions to rage free. The equivalent of throwing cat shit over a neighbours fence.
So, with all that in mind, and because I am a Socially Aware individual and artist, although some extremists would dispute that (they are basically playground sneerers and bullies at the end of the day) I am going to state my intent and reflection for this ceramic creation as follows:

For Those Who Have Been Blessed By God
This was a title that came to me actaully after making these ceramic sculptures.
They are irregular, fragile, insecure. Sometimes they fell apart during construction and the stress of handling, gravity, and exposure to extremes (high temperatues in the kiln, sudeen heat and dryness).
Mostly they are imperfect. And organic, with their own construction, much like neural networks building up or a body developing from fetus.
In society, especially in those religious groups, people with healthy happy children or great careers and household call themselves "blessed". They have the upper hand. If they have succeeded and everything is perfect, they publicly thank an imaginary diety, but really they are boasting. This is not just a 21st century phenomenon, it has reared its head in literature throughout the ages. To be perfect, and to be wealthy, is to be favoured and endowed. Sinners suffer poverty and illmess through their own doings. Its as prevalent an attitude today as it has ever been. Does this person deserve state assistenace..?
On the otherside of the spectrum are those who are parents or sufferers themselves of disability or mental defiecency. Those (like myself) who are "imperfect", "broken", "wrong". They may identify as blessed bacause of the the quirks that their state of mental or physical difference endows them with. Parents of Downs Syndrome children talk of their warmth and affection. Sufferers of ADHD talk of their amazing ideas, people with Autism often have gifts of mathematics or drawing. Depressives have deep insight. Anxious people will empahise and bond with the vulnerable and lonesome.
So this work celebtate all that is "WRONG" or "imperfect" within humanity.
It is to tell people who are perfect and flawless and blessed that we imprefrct and flawed can also be blessed. And they have to shre the world with us, see us for what we are, all higgedlt piggedly, whther they like it or not. We irregylars are there, and we will be recognised, not euthenised.

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