Conjoined Cups - 2023-2024

Like twins, the Conjoined Cups series explores the visual language of both family trees and molecular bonds, expressing the inherent chemistry of the glaze surface through “generational” research. The branching structure of these cups is taken from the results of triaxial tests (where three materials are incrementally blended) leading to "descendant" or "twin" glaze recipes’’. Through this empirical approach, one can visually infer chemical composition to adjust colour or glaze structure without needing technical lab equipment.

The glaze recipes used in this series source local materials that have been tested over four years, exploring their differences through delicately balanced ratios of clay, ash, and other minerals. Allowing the material to choose for itself the colour and texture which naturally occur. This subverts contemporary ceramics expectations of requiring colouring oxides or industrial pigments. When a glaze in this series turns green, it is not through the use of chrome–a common ceramic pigment–it is simply a result of the chemical bonds formed during the firing. When this can be achieved using local materials it is an environmental success, removing the need for the energy-intensive and often inhumane practices associated with refining ceramic oxides such as chrome, copper, cobalt, etc… These materials, sourced from all over the world, are difficult to trace and have very precarious supply chains; often involving child labour, unfair pay, and the poisoning of surrounding land and water. Using local and waste materials in this way prevents further environmental harm and brings new life to the material as art and/or functional objects.

Ceramic oxides such as cobalt are so often used in our modern world and in contemporary ceramics that it can be hard to argue for a complete boycott. And yet cobalt represents one of the greatest sources of human and environmental harm caused in the mining industry today. Although, action targeting the companies responsible is long-overdue, we must nonetheless begin by asking that ceramic materials be treated with far more care and respect for the places they come from. To use them, one must also understand the human and environmental costs associated with their production. With cobalt, 70% of the global supply comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo where it is mostly mined in "Artisanal Mines” meaning without any safety regulations or specialized equipment.¹ Considering these implications, ceramic materials should never be wasted down the drain or sent to landfill. There exist processes for recycling and reclaiming everything, from raw material, to a fired and finished piece, and it is the ceramicists responsibility to do so. As this proposed research in collective reclaim develops, the connections made between materials will form a family tree. As one notable result leads to another, a diverse palette of sustainable ceramics can emerge. The conjoined cups series is an aesthetic counterpart to this research, showing how local and reclaimed materials can be beautiful and functional through rigorous testing and a community open to sharing their results.

1 Kara, Siddharth. Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2023.