Hamish Jackson: Unwinding

Unwinding

I love clay the most when you can still change it. The various stages of
wetness when it is squishy. That’s where the magic plays. How incredible
that you can poke, prod, cut, rip or squish a form, leave it to dry, and lock
in that movement forever.

I am grateful for my training as an apprentice in North Carolina. Over four
years, I threw a lot and learned how to make precise forms. The finished
pots were fairly precise and taut. They felt more like stone than clay.
 

Recently, I have been experimenting with different ways of working, to try to
add more softness and expressiveness into my pots. I want them to reflect
me to a greater extent. I am not taut and precise. I am messy, and hopefully
fun and generous and kind; I’m certainly distractible, often ambitious,
frequently late. “Mr. Chaos,” as one of my mentors, Pietro Maddalena,
dubbed me. I want my pots to reflect some of this. Not the lateness.
I want my pots to be squishier and softer. To feel like a hug when you use
them. To express the innate malleability of clay in its wet form.
 

These pots are my first steps in this direction. When I was making and
squishing or ripping clay in the studio, it felt radical. I had to be brave.
Change is hard and failure is scary. When you move into the unknown,
failure is certain. But I am finding that mistakes often contain seeds.
Anyway, thanks for coming and thanks for reading this! 

Keep smiling,
Hamish Jackson