Source work:
0806/85
Roger Fry (1866-1934)
Still Life with Omega Flowers
1919
Oil on canvas
Colbourne Vase - Ian Calder
Ian Calder (b.1955)
Colbourne Vase
Ceramic, Armenian bole, Japan gold-size and gold-leaf
R5 000
The rather sombre pottery vase in Roger Fry's 1919 painting, Still Life with Omega Flowers, is the focus of my ceramic work for this exhibition.
The flowers in Fry's painting occupied my first thoughts about using his painting as a source for my own work for this exhibition, mainly because I often use flower-images in my own painted ceramics - plants are emblematic indigenous forms that are identified with KwaZulu-Natal. So I first responded to the artificial forms of Fry's flowers (as I understand it, the Omega group of artists constructed their own flowers using paper and fabrics: inventions for their still-life paintings. Their synthetic blooms were generated by their individual creativeness and in the group's aims to design everyday objects that were both beautiful and utilitarian).
However the hybrid forms of Fry's Omega flowers hampered my visual transactions, and I turned to Fry's vase instead as the basis of a more generalised sort of form to construct my own work. In studying Fry's still-life painting I discovered a harmonious numerical relationship in comparing the vase's ratios of base to height to width, and so for the Tatham's 'Contemporary Reflections' exhibition, I decided to exercise Fry's harmonious set of proportions to make my own vase.
I constructed my vase and its sculptural base separately, by throwing clay on a pottery wheel, and then assembled them together after firing; each piece was glazed with a different stoneware glaze. The vase has a smooth undulating form, like Fry's pot, and curvilinear surface (although the dark-grey glaze is matte, rough and speckled in places) whilst the stand is elaborate in its carved surface (I used small chisels to cut into the hard clay, to make chopped and facetted marks).
At first glance Fry's painting of a dark vase looks drab, but closer inspection showed some subtly cheerful colours that he used to build up his form. However, I decided to retain my first impression of the solemnity of Fry's vase, and to make my own vase dark. As the surface of Fry's painted vase also suggests aridity I chose a glaze that would be dry and tactile in appearance. I departed from Fry's vase a lot in adding a painting to my vase after firing, using traditional materials: Armenian bole, Japan Gold-size and gold-leaf. Within the outline of the Fry vase on my pot, my imagery refers to local landforms and indigenous plants.
The carved stand has a bronzed glaze to evoke memories of the gold frames of the old paintings in the Tatham Art Gallery. The idea of a carved sculptural base for my vase also came from the Tatham Art Gallery, from the Chinese porcelains that were donated by Colonel Whitwell at the beginning of the 20th century. Many of these delicate blue-and-white vases and bowls have carved rosewood stands: the juxtaposition and contrast of different forms and materials inspired me to make a ceramic work that brought many of my interests together in a new way.
As a ceramist, my challenge was to design a new piece that incorporated elements from many different sites and periods of cultural production, and to imprint this vase with my own sense of identity. My ceramics are painted, often with imagery that commemorates local cultural sites, landforms and indigenous plants; my painting in gold leaf reminisces about a hill and flowers near my home.