Grit

The purpose of this paper is to support an exhibition of sculpture created throughout the past two years in the Department of Visual Arts and Art History at York University towards a Masters in Fine Art. Grit, takes multiple meanings and is used throughout this paper explore material connection and resolve. At the onset of an MFA, I sought to investigate contemporary propositions that recontextualize the tradition of sculpture; specifically, as a maker through a feminist and materialistic lens that highlights reciprocity between maker and material. The paper submitted has been organized within a braid, the main strand informed by a set of identified themes developed within a design vocabulary that offers a framework from which to investigate the work created and their material relations, a central theme to my thesis. Woven throughout an auto-fictional account is a technical investigation into three elements from an often-used glaze recipe. Materially, grit is the substance worked with in the studio; clay, glass, and various dusts extracted from the earth, utilized in specific ways combined with heat provide opportunities for alchemical transformations. As I tumble between the demands of motherhood, academia and art making, writing becomes the grit, a useful polish to bring forth relations and demonstrate how the act of making is entwined with daily life.