On fallen ground



August 19, 2010

Last week I was in Athens.  Walking around the city I thought a lot about the relationships between materials and the ground.  Stones extracted from the landscape, carved and built into elaborate constructions, then to fall and be abandoned or ripped apart and re-made.  At Hadrian’s Library a mosaic floor appears in the dust between the remains of collapsed walls.  Close by, upright green shoots pierce the same ground like miniature living columns. 

Before I went away I made part of a fallen tree based on a scene from an enamel painted plate in the study galleries.  Though ruins often appear in the compositions applied to tableware, this plate caught my attention as it depicts nature itself partly fallen to ruin.

About the author



August 19, 2010

Phoebe Cummings was the V&A's ceramics artist-in-residence from June-December 2010. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2005 she has undertaken a number of residencies, projects and exhibitions...

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