Green Chalcedony: C.1-2018

Titles

Green Chalcedony

Maker(s)

Ceramicist: Genders, Carolyn

Entities

• Vessel

Categories

• Earthenware
• Studio Ceramics

Description

Coiled white earthenware vessel decorated with painted, coloured slips, sgraffito and burnished.

Tall vessel, rising from a tiny circular base to a wide open mouth. The sides have been coiled towards each other to produce an irregular, flattened shape. One side is slightly concave, with two angular vertical ‘corners’ to the left. The surface is covered inside and out with patches of pale coloured slips, in different shades of blue, green and gold/brown, and burnished. Scratched lines and shapes are laid into the colour. Over this more colour is lightly brushed over the surface, with a spattering of gold/brown near the rim. The underside is flat and coloured.

Notes

History note: Contemporary Ceramics Centre, 63 Great Russell St, London W1J 5JN, from where purchased by the donors on 15 November 2017.

Legal notes

Gift of Nicholas and Judith Goodison through the Art Fund

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (2018-01-29) by Goodison, Nicholas and Judith

Dating

21st Century, Early
Production date: marked AD 2017

Note

Carolyn Genders (b. 1957) graduated from Brighton Polytechnic in 1979 and Goldsmiths College in 1986. She is a Fellow of the Craft Potters Association and and a Member of Contemporary Applied Arts. She has exhibited internationally since the 1980s. She uses traditional hand-building methods, matt vitreous slips and burnished terra sigilatta (a watery refined slip which is painted onto the pot before firing) to produce colourful vessels that explore form, brushstroke and colour. She works by responding to both her material and to the rhythms of the forms as she moves around inscribing marks though the layers of slip. The essence of her practice is abstraction.

‘Chalcedony’ is a the geological name for a form of quartz-containing silica. Typically white, grey, greyish-blue or in shades of brown, it has a waxy lustre and may be translucent.