Jen Mills logo

FOLD

Fold is an installation of cast salt bowls resting on a wooden armature that places each bowl at varying distances from the floor. The bowls subtly change shape as they slide into and emerge throughout the landscape of the piece. The repetition of the forms creates a quiet, meditative mood, and one cannot help counting each bowl, comparing one to another in order to discover slight variations in texture and light.

I choose materials not only for aesthetic reasons, but also for their symbolic meaning. Salt has strong ties to ceramics; it is a common ingredient in glazes and is used in various firing techniques. The forms themselves are also rooted in functional pottery. Each bowl is made using a mold, a common ceramic hand-building and slip-casting technique, and is held together with sodium silicate, an important ingredient in ceramic casting slip.

I also chose salt as a material not only because of its strong ties to ceramics, but also because of its powerful symbolic associations with ritual, purification, memory, and landscape; common themes that run throughout my work.


 

handlecover

 

back to Fold

 

back to texts