Mary O'Malley's "Bottom Feeders" sculpture-series depicts cups, teapots, plates, saucers and bowls that appear to have been recovered from the sea-bottom, covered in barnacles, coral, tentacles and crustaceans.
The set is huge and pretty much totally perfect, each piece distinctive and bursting with hints of untold narrative and years of imprisonment on the sea-bottom. She's based in New York State, and has a form for people interested in purchasing the pieces. She also has some beautiful prints for sale at $60 each.
There is so much fastidious control involved in
creating each
one of the
Bottom Feeder
pieces, but with ceramics there is
always a margin for error, and some degree of control must be sacrificed. The
composition of barnacles and crustaceans populating each piece, the way the
iron oxide discovers every nook of the creatures I've created, the way the
tentacles warp in the firings, etc., is always a surprise. I'm never exactly
sure how anything's going to turn out. By allowing myself to be fully present
in the creation of the different parts of these pieces but then giving in to
the composition and glazing process gives each piece its own identity.
In the
end, one type of beauty is enhanced by complementing its foil, resulting in
two completely different aesthetics existing harmoniously as one piece.
(via JWZ)
