Geordie Shepherd
Interactive and Community
My inspiration for this series started in 1995 when I saw an 18th century traveling Tea Set at the Gardiner Ceramic Museum which inspired me to make a piece where the ceramics was used on a journey like a blank sketchbook. The challenge was that unfired ceramics is too fragile to travel and once fired, its very challenging to add more glaze. The solution was sinter firing, a partial firing just hot enough that the clay and glaze are durable, but low enough that the glazed surface is porous enough to absorb additional layers. Making a ceramic piece is usually a race against time and like kitchens, there is only room for one cook, however, sintering made the working time potentially infinite and allowed other people to physically take and add to the pieces, fundamentally altering the usual ceramic production paradigm, and over the years I've returned to this theme in a variety of forms
SMS 155 (2025)
This is a community based piece reflecting upon how we remember conflict and peace. Based upon the notion of soldiers writing messages to the enemy on munitions, I made three 155mm artillery shells in clay, exploded them, then invited participants to write and draw their responses on the shards. Three different layers of responses were layered upon each other before they were fired and displayed with a single unbroken shell.
Albuquerque Boxes (2009)
A community based piece completed for a Land Art exhibition at the John Sommers gallery at the University of New Mexico. Over a two week period, multiple participants selected one of six thematic boxes to travel with them for one day and respond by writing or drawing on the three ceramic forms in each box before returning it. A new layer of glaze was applied to each ceramic form and sinter fired then returned to the box for the next participant. .
Making Artistic Inquiry Visible Boxes (2008)
A community based piece completed during the Making Artistic Inquiry Visible residency. Participants could take one of six thematic boxes for a day and respond by writing or drawing on the three ceramic forms in each box then return it. A new layer of glaze was applied to each ceramic form and sinter fired then returned to the box for the next participant. At the end of the residency all forms were fired to maturity.
Travelling Pottery Box (1995)
A complete Travelling Tea set that records the diary of a young girl as she travels with her family through a fictional land and uses drawing and writing to sequentially describe her thoughts and various events during their fantastical journey.
