Ceramicists We Love: Lucinda Mudge

WORDS Ashraf Booley

Crackerjack ceramicist Lucinda Mudge spoke to VISI about the beauty of the round canvas, her artistic process and her latest body of work.

What sparked your love of ceramics?

I‘ve been fascinated since childhood. It’s the transformation that the clay undergoes, the potential of an unfired piece, and the chance beauty of the final product that enthrals me. I have a love-hate relationship with ceramics, because it’s such a difficult medium to control.

Why use vases as your medium?

The beauty of a round canvas is that the story will link up and repeat. I use this to reference the human condition – the idea that we are on repeat. With a vase, it isn’t possible to see the whole picture at once, which is another reference to the way we live – what we choose not to see. If you don’t like the message, you can turn it to face the wall.

Take us through your artistic process.

Building a large ceramic vase is similar to spending weeks stretching a canvas and mixing paints. All that time I’m thinking. My personality is to be free. I can’t make test tiles. I can’t measure the amount of stain in milligrams. I rebel against it all. These elements combined result in a rawness that’s carried through to the final piece.

What inspires you?

Observing people’s actions, human characteristics and traits. I live surrounded by nature, and draw immense daily pleasure from the natural beauty of our landscape around Plettenberg Bay. This paradise, however, like the rest of South Africa, sees a fast turnover of life and death, casual violence and social unrest. These are issues that I find impossible to ignore and which I spend a lot of time digesting.

Tell us about your latest body of work, The Wolf is Always Near.

It’s a visual and socio-political record comprising 20 new vases. It draws inspiration from art history, cartoons, pop songs, fabric designs and art deco vase patterns. There’s a whimsical collision of the popular and the refined, the violent and the beautiful. The title, taken from a Russian lullaby, refers somewhat humorously to the pressure to succeed as an artist. It also references the theme of animal predation and fables, a theme that I have explored for my London exhibition.

For more information about Lucinda, visit lucindamudge.wordpress.com.