Fredi Rahn

Artist statement

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My spring season began with an unexpected bike crash, resulting in a fractured tibeal plateau. I had newly planted my garden. Spring became a season of slowly healing, managing pain and discomfort, cancelling plans, adapting. I lay in bed and watched the garden absorb rain, the new plants’ roots settling. How humbling to be so incapacitated, completely reliant on the service and kindness of friends and family. My first venture back into the studio revealed that my plans for new work needed to change. I scaled back my pace, and like a tortoise, I found that progress could be made in tiny incremental steps. The vessels I am making are built, row by row, with coils, knitted together with fingers and a small serrated metal tool, then expanded by pinching the walls to thin and compress the clay. This expands the form in a somewhat uncontrolled way, the weedy growth resulting in unexpected curves and hollows. I worked intuitively, starting at a known place, and responding to the tree-like forms by adding branch-like protrusions. As my body responded to medication, sleep and therapy, I began some pieces that felt more controlled and symmetrical. Trying to move back and forth between stillness and motion, the round volumes perch on narrow feet, and the surfaces bear the scars of building. The dark stoneware is covered with a thick luminous porcelain slip, playfully textured with a swirling pattern suggesting the movement of wind or water.