Confections

摘要

Jane Abbott's defining installation piece, Rock Cakes Recipe (2004), was presented in a cheerful, idiosyncratic and entirely unconfrontational manner during a Brighton Festival event. Installation art sometimes defers to the concept, making the viewer work hard to get to the 'truth' of the piece. Rock Cakes Recipe first made you laugh, then, as you read the underlying script about the derivation of the piece, it made you think that even an apparently novelty work could be grounded in a career-long practice, a lengthy distillation of cultural references and sources, and a devoted service to ceramic teaching. The piece wore its seriousness lightly. This tells us a good deal about Abbott's honest, forthright and modest approach to her work. But she hits an uncanny nerve with her artful, unproblematic wares, and has consistently sold well, whether working in the vessel form, on more sculptural pieces or in the production of jewellery. She does not rest on the laurels of past success; she does use her teaching to lead her to deliver new ideas, and finds in this work the proper balance of creativity. Teaching is a creative process for her, not a necessary chore.