Edmund de Waal at Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Brenda, Jane, Karin, Vanda and I had a thought provoking day out in Cambridge to see Edmund de Waal's display of pots.  I find his art quite hard work.  His pots are tiny white plain porcelain pots, arranged in multiples.  They have infinite variations in shades of white, glaze, height, edge finish, throwing marks, eye level of display, position of maker's mark, and display spacing.  Because they are so plain, I find it difficult to see their appeal.

 The first time I walked round the museum, I found it difficult to appreciate anything in his work - although it was more to my taste than most of the rest of the highly decorated ceramic wares from all over the world!  Maybe I am a bit of a philistine!  However, I drew a selection of his pots which were displayed on a glass case so that they were viewed from below, and started to understand that the spacing was what provided a lot of the visual appeal.  Then I went back to a display of white ceramic from the Fitzwilliam collection, which de Waal had set out so that disparate pieces were "in conversation" with each other, and I get it!  I might not be the quickest student to grasp a concept, but I can get there eventually!

Brenda did some ace sketches.  As the pots are white, and she works with texture, she created dark pages with graphite, then drew into them with an eraser.  Her drawings were fantastic.  I would never have thought of doing this, although I have worked negatively into charcoal and enjoyed it.  The marks of the eraser gave soft textured marks that represented the pots very well.