REFUGE SERIES

CRAFT STUDY CENTRE, FARNHAM, SURREY.
The Refuge Series was made in response to objects in the CRAFT STUDY CENTRE Collection, Farnham, UK; to a series of tiny pots used as glaze tests made by Lucie Rie.

Amongst these was a small, porcelain vase with simple vertical lines drawn into the glaze. ‘this delicate drawing was less decoration than a means of exposing the structure…. cages of sgraffito, a trellis that simultaneously defined and exposed the volume of Rie’s pots’ (Clarke, 1995:171).

Responding to her use of sgraffito through a manganese glaze, Lines painted or sgraffitoed onto the surfaces of fence poles creating a further layering of reference. Boundaries. Borders. Barriers. Barricades.

These small-scale sculptures, resembling fences or figures huddled together, speak of the movement of people, displacement and dis-belonging.

WW II. 1939–1945 In 1938 Lucie Rie, a Jewish emigrant, fled Nazi Austria for London.

Clarke, Garth (1995) The Potter’s Art: A Complete History of Pottery In Britain. Phaidon