STILL ALIVE

摘要

Potters have ambivalent relationships with still life. The idea of stillness, stasis, nature morte seems to go against the need to animate objects, bring them into activity of everyday life. Surely there is a diminution of meaning, goes this argument, through the careful disposition of pots. It smacks of preciosity, this over-considered, over-articulated arrangement of vessels. Still life should be the temporary pause in a robust domestic life, a brief gathering on the draining-board, mantelpiece or crockery cupboard. But then again there is the longing to be looked at properly, to occupy attention for more than the fleeting moment. There is the desire to make something that you return to and in which you can find more and more. There is the longing -the concept that Susan Stewart writes so well about in relation to collecting - to make a frame for understanding objects. Still life occupies a place of desire: it seems to frame meanings.