Where we live: making tablets

Last week you saw samples of stitched clay tablets. This week, I’m making new tablets.

Roll out the clay, cut it into rectangles, then use a small metal keyhole like a cookie cutter. Poke holes to sew through. After they dry, I sand them.

Luckily, I have a good stash of old keyhole plates.

For the keyhole tablets, I rub the surface with a smooth stone, which polishes the clay.

Other tablets are being impressed with the word HOME, in many different languages. For all the languages that use the Roman alphabet, I have rubber stamps and the keys from old typewriters:

For other languages, I ordered new rubber stamps…

…which worked perfectly:

Not at all sure what I’ll do with the door and window tiles. Just have to keep making them until they tell me what to do.

You can never have too many….

In a couple of old TV shows, I’ve seen characters make a clay sculpture and stick it right in the kiln. NOoooo!!! The clay must be dried very slowly, covering it, then letting it breathe; turning each piece over, repeat. If they are’t dried carefully, they can warp or split. And the clay must be absolutely dry before firing, because remember what a tiny drop of moisture does inside a hard corn kernel when it gets hot? That’s what would happen in the kiln.

More next week.

where we live

Last week we looked at the unmapped city of Makoko, in Lagos, in Nigeria. Somehow, this one (out of all my cartographic research) inspired new artwork.

Makoko is a huge floating city, built on stilts above the water.

(Below) Instead of cars, people use canoes.

(Below) Sometimes referred to as the Venice of Africa, Makoko is a thriving community. In a certain carefully framed light, it might look Venetian. People conduct business out of their canoes. But Makoko is also very poor and polluted and Lagos has made attempts to tear it all down.

As I was looking at these aerial views of unmapped areas, something in them reminded me of organic patterns, like some cellular structures:

So I went down to my studio, with only a vague notion that I needed to try a network of stitches to hold together the buildings, the homes. It was time to let my fingers do some thinking. And here’s what happened:

(Above) A hoard of old ceramic tablets, left over from a previous project. Each one is about an inch long, and white unglazed clay. I rubbed various acrylic paint on them, wiped it off, to leave just a bit of color, then arranged them on a piece of wool (left from an old army blanket). After arranging, I glued the tablets down (just to hold them in place) before I sewed them. Detail below:

I used threads in all different skin colors. Suggesting that people hold the place together? The spaces between the tablets have some subtle embroidery ( BACK HOME, GO GET FOOD, TO NANA’S). It’s not entirely successful, but now I’m making a whole new bunch of ceramic tablets and will continue to play around with the idea of Where We Live.

More next week.