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LoveArt
The LoveArt podcast is hosted by leading contemporary art advisor Amanda Love, offering an informed perspective on the Australian and international contemporary art market
LoveArt
Love[f]Art #11 | Sam Gold
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Hosted by Amanda Love, the LoveArt podcast brings listeners into direct conversation with contemporary artists, extending the work of the independent art advisory, LoveArt, based in Sydney, New York and Athens.
The series draws from Love[f]Art, LoveArt’s ongoing program of intimate, in-conversation recordings with artists, originally conceived in 2020. Filmed in the most unlikely of settings—the guest powder room at the Love residence—the project strips things back to a one-to-one exchange, focusing on ideas, process and the conditions that shape contemporary practice.
This episode features Sam Gold, a queer non-binary artist who turned their hand to ceramics in earnest in 2018, bringing over a decade of training in Transpersonal Art Therapy, Furniture Design and studies in Contemporary Art to the medium.
Recorded in April 2023, at the time of the work’s installation, the conversation offers a direct insight into the thinking behind the piece, and the broader concerns that underpin their practice.
Gold is represented by Hugo Michell Gallery.
Additional information, including the video version of this podcast, is available here.
Hello and welcome to the 11th iteration of Love Art's Nano project Love for Art, where we continue to multitask this purpose-built isolation chamber, our mini-guest powder room, as a sort of voite de belize, in which we aim to counter the increasing size and complexity of much institutional contemporary practice with explorations of a different scale. Here on Galiguland, so I do pay respects to the Aiora Nation and all its peoples, we investigate the tiny and the one-to-one to showcase the strength of current artistic expression, which is, by necessity, innovative and ingenious. I'm Amanda Love, and it's my great pleasure to introduce our latest site-specific installation, Words We Devour, by the young and rapidly emerging ceramicist Sam Gold. Sam, welcome.
SPEAKER_00Hi Amanda, how are you? Very well, thanks. You're in your studio, I can see. Yes, I'm tucked away in the office area at Mix Goods, so it's a collector studio. So you may hear like a little bit of drilling in the background. I do apologize.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's okay. You may hear our fruit order being delivered. I'm sure it's going to be delivered right in the middle of the Zoom. But Dun, thank you very much for participating in this project. And um, it'll be really good to talk to you about it. But a little bit, first we'll we'll just talk a little bit about you because I understand I I know that you're originally from South Australia, where you're still living and working on the Adelaide Plains, which is Karma Yote land, and that you only turned your hand to ceramics in earnest about five years ago, which was around 2018, I think. However, in doing so, you you literally brought together a decade of of quite quite diverse therapy and and training. I wondered if you could tell us um a bit about these studies and therapies and how they led you to your current self and your practice.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And that's such a great question to start with. Um, so I did study for about 12 years and I worked through um a Bachelor of Contemporary Art and I kind of worked on that part-time. On the side of that, I had other full-time study, and I I studied furniture design and technology, and then really got invested in transpersonal art therapy. And then I ended up working in that industry for about three years, and that's what kind of brought me to Clay as a medium to really specialise in. So I finally um mustered up everything and finished off third year at UNSA. I was at Adelaide Central School of Art. Um, but they had UNISA had a really great facilities and equipment. So it meant that I could really focus on um ceramic methodologies. Um, when I studied and practiced as an art therapist, there was something about the qualities of the material that lent itself to processing lived experiences, all types, not always about like trauma, um, you know, pleasure and pain and the spectrum between that. And I just felt that for a very myriad of people from all types of backgrounds, it's the one material that had the most release, the most insight. Um, it's such a mimetic material. It really holds you and your profile, and it really is like standing up to a mirror of what you're holding in your body.
SPEAKER_01That's what that to that, and and I suppose stylistically you're increasingly you know you're well known for what I think is I would describe and is described as a sort of pinch style coiled sculpture and vessels, which and these really push not just the structural, but also the conceptual capacity of clay to which you were you were kind of just alluding. And I thought that before we look at specific examples and shows, if you could just tell us a bit about how you see these works that you make, especially in relation to your physical and your emotional self, you've you've touched on that, but I know that you're quoted as saying your body is the only boundary for the clay, you're the profile.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Um, I see like each vessel that actually gets archived as like a little ode, an offering. I really like to interrogate all processes of ceramics. I'm very fixated on the transitioning states of um firing processes and like why take fire? Why would it what what does it have to offer the world as like another object? And I really believe that the message of the material is what I am essentially really trying to communicate um to like, you know, politically, socially, emotionally. So do you see yourself as a kind of a cipher through which Yeah, and I see that like there is a tacit knowledge and a sense of touch that can't always be verbally um communicated, and it's to kind of draw back to our bodies as a really um invaluable tool for navigating the world and kind of getting more aware. So when I teach wheel throwing, um, the art of centering is literally to center your body. And if you know, even a slight scoliosis or um, you know, a stressful moment like in your life or something that you're really ecstatic about, those things can actually like send you off kilter a little bit. So to kind of come back into balance. Sorry about that.
SPEAKER_01So do you have a practice, um, like a de practice practice where you actually have a set of things that you go through, whether it's breathing or meditation or just to put yourself in that moment and in that posture that you need?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, actually I do. I think um uh there's a lot of dance theory around the score. And so I do actually have like a system of exercises of getting really like um warmed up in my body before like setting up. Even wedging is also a way of warming up the body to the material. Um so definitely like oh, wedging is a stage, and so sorry about that. Um wedging is the stage where you are moving and shifting the clay platelets, so it's like the cellular body of the clay, and you're basically getting air bubbles out, you're it's going from a still, like it's say a clay bag that hasn't been touched, to moving it and making it like jelly. So water and movement make clay like jelly, get it really fluid and warm as well. So yeah, you you do that as like the first process you come to.
SPEAKER_01Right. So that's that's just you know warming up that's coming together. And I know it's a brilliant, it's a brilliant um it's a I know that the the Rolling Stones um sort of fun fact, always before they went on, they had to play a game of pool together because they had to put themselves in a situation where they could actually be fluid and and knew the state of all the other people. It's sort of a similar sort of idea.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So and and I know that uh since 2022 you've been showing commercially with the Hugo Michelle Gallery, where you've had some notable solo exhibitions, which we'll go through in a minute, and that you were also included in the 2019 Australian Ceramic Triennial, and in the same year, too, on the famous Adelaide Gann as part of their 90th birthday celebrations. Sadly, we don't have any images um for these uh two shows or these two um projects. But I just wondered, just in terms of the physicality we've been talking about, how did the GAN project play out for you? I mean, did you take materials with you and make works en route, or did you do everything when you came back? Or did you what what was your process for that?
SPEAKER_00Well, being invited into the GAN residency was through Guild House. So they're the ensuring and arts um, I guess, advocacy body here in South Australia. And I got a call from Debbie Pryor just saying with this timeline suit, we'd really love you to be a resident. Um on this occasion, you're actually just going there for experience and you're gonna just have an experiential time where you get to taking inspiration from that trip and the landscape and and all of the interactions. And I actually um made a like a very small body of work. The timeline turnaround was really quite quick from getting back from the GAN. Um, and it was about the dialogue between others on the actual GAN. And then, you know, there were lots of things that overlap in my work around sediments and layers. I kind of relate them to like the layers between people and what we bring in a day, um, and I'm layering those layers. So it was a little bit of like a collected social experience from that trip. Um, it was very sh soon, like and quite shortly after graduating. Um, and then not having any archived images definitely prompted me to go get them. So I have started seeking those out.
SPEAKER_01Oh, good. Well, and it seems then that's kind of a a collaborative project, or it's it it seems to be that it was. And so did that is that what set you up for the the next project that you you did in 2020, which was Material Girls, um funded by the Adelaide Fringe at the Praxis Arts Space, where you worked with uh Kate Bohoonas, do you pronounce Kate Boonis and Anna Gore, where you all worked together in an open studio and responded to each other's work? It sounds like a really interesting project. Um, I think we've got some images here finally of this. You obviously got your skates on archivally. Um, but how did that type of collaboration work, was it did it play off the GUN work, or how did that type of collaboration work for you? I mean, what what are the pros and cons of of collaborating like that?
SPEAKER_00It was it was definitely like a string of experiences and opportunities that all kind of came straight after graduating. So the GUN and a residency at the George Street Studios, which is where this work is based from. So I was in a year-long residency. First six months was funded by the Helpman Academy, and then the next six months was the Fringe residency, and I got to work with Kate and Anna, colleagues of mine, and we're all in the same kind of field of being emerging artists. So these particular works here, um, in terms of the compressed um pinch and ripple that is like a continual thread in my work, I started bouncing off of this collaborative, like you know, these relational um interactions between people. So I do think that the Garn had like an influence of that thread of thinking through my work. Um, it would be something that Kate, myself, and Anna would have like something that really took our inspiration. So, like textures that formed and built over other surfaces. There were these beautiful plants that just cooled all over these. Um the George Street residency is um, you know, a beautiful warehouse full of these um tenants who had been there for 20 years, you know, mainly welders or furniture makers, and they had almost like a hoarder's nest of objects. And so I ended up finding molds that I ended up um repeating the pattern over. That then responded to Anna Gore's work. She found this really funny little funky like jug that had this like wonderful handle. Um, and I think Anna actually bought it as an object archive in this show. And so yeah, we we definitely bounced off of each other in terms of ideas. Um, you know, I would support Kate in some of the molds that she made for the works that were presented in Material Girls. Um and yeah, I think it was very collegial, very like allowing ourselves not to be refined by just um one idea, but working through these ideas in a fluid way together.
SPEAKER_01And did you always have, I mean, were there the discussions always um angryable or were they robust? And did you have sort of we have to work with three other people?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. They're really really um in-depth, like enjoyable, sometimes very light-hearted. Um we weren't always, always like at the studio at the same time together. Um and when I was making molds, you know, Kate would be making molds also. And then when we were exploring like harder materials, like these stones that um the works are presented on, they were on loan, but they were then inspired by the stones and the besser blocks that were actually on site at George Street. Um, the works that you can see above in this image that Anna Gore painted, um, we often found that there was just this gesture, this stroke that we both always lent into into our practices and this kind of the natural resources coming through. Um, so I guess like the scales of the pinch on a mold and then put together in the objects that you see there kind of resemble these like banks and the textures that are going through there. Um they do.
SPEAKER_01I I think it's a beautiful exhibition. I mean, looking at looking at the images from it, it seems very simpatico. It seems like a very calm space and a very generative space.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And there were just common threads in our practices, like working with um, you know, the idea of the work and the material being the main dialogue of um emotional restoration, um, restoring ourselves or experiences through material play.
SPEAKER_01And did you feel restored after the exhibition as versus versus feeling tired that you had it? So you did feel restored?
SPEAKER_00I did, and I also was starting the jam factory at the same time. So I had like two studios overlapping for almost like the last two months of this show and that residency. Um, there was something fresh about being able to collate what we experienced for a year together, and that it was leaning into play as well, like a lot of um exploring materials. And you can see these objects here, they're actually um uh like ball gouged, they're my works as well, but they're sandblasted and um scorched works, and I got to like work with a lot of machinery that I hadn't before when I did practice furniture making. Right. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um sadly we don't have any images of the jam factory, but I know that you know next the big next big thing was in 2021 when you were included in the very prestigious and I could say career making exhibition uh for emerging artists, which is primavera at the MCA Sydney. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But I to before that, I just want to touch on something you mentioned when about awards, because I know that between 2000 2019 and 2022, you received uh quite a few equally prestigious awards. I think you you have you got the you mentioned the Helpman Um Academy Grant and the an undergraduate award for excellence, the um Helpman Creative Investment Fund, and then the University of South Australia's um Australian Ceramics Council Award, followed by their Merit Award for Academic Excellence, excellence. And I I wondered, I I always think it's very if you could speak to the role of awards such as these in the career of young artists in general and and yours in particular.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Like I was very um, you know, humbled and I had no idea that those awards that I would be even nominated or up for those awards. Um at the UNISA graduate exhibition, I did get the two, the undergraduate award and the Friends of Sassa Award that you mentioned. And it yeah, it was just really um in like humbling and also um I was so appreciative to be able to be recognized as somebody who was really passionately dedicated to the very like stepping beginning stepping stones of like um committing to a practice. And I feel like they were notable in terms of only being um versed and around South Australian arts industry and being able to now like branch um nationally and go into state, having those opportunities and just seeing the value that awards hold. It's like a recognition that um, you know, is bestowed to you that you're it's just like a like winning. Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, and and it did allow you to um move outside South Australia because well, let's move on to Primavera now, which is which I think is where I first um really noted your work. And for those who don't know, Primavera is the MCA's annual showcase of emerging creatives aged under 35 or 35 years and under. And it features only those artists who represent current trends or styles emerging in the next generation of artists. And in that year, Sam was one of only five artists who were selected nationally. And so, Sam, you worked with the Melbourne-based um Aboriginal curator Hannah Presley in relation to this show. Um, as an artist, do you find working with it was this different? Do you find working with the curator useful? How how did you work together?
SPEAKER_00Hannah is one of the most exceptional curators I have ever had the pleasure working with. Um, Hannah holds something quite um unique to Hannah as a person, but also as a First Nations curator. And that's this um curatorial role of care. And I've never been exposed to that level of um integrity and insight before. And I will always have Hannah marked in my heart and in my memory for the experience that I had with Hannah.
SPEAKER_01So it was totally positive and bat and and very helpful as an artist to have someone to support and work. I mean, did you t tend to bounce ideas off her? Did she, you know, talk about what she was wanting from you in terms of the whole exhibition, or how how did the conversation go?
SPEAKER_00Hannah was so ready to just meet me as an artist. So I remember being invited and then the openness around like, you know, be ambitious, aim big, let's work on um, you know, unraveling what it is that you would like to present. All my ideas were met with um a you know, a sense of positive regard, um even like downscaling and being realistic about outcomes um through the making process. Hannah was like a constant resource. And um also Lucy Latella, the assistant curator, was also um quite hands-on in terms of being able to be in dialogue with all of us together or be a conduit for communication to and from each other. Um, I was able to bounce off ideas and um something that I like in the studio practice and something I really embrace is the idea of hurdles and mistakes, or coming to something that you um don't predict. And I like the knowledges that they bring in the studio and being able to unpack them with Hannah meant that um, you know, it it wasn't greeted with like this is a problem, or like that scale, or this is how much of a shrinkage like a meter point three work has done in the king, you know, it shrunk more than 30%. Um and so like I I think the integrity of not just birthing conceptual ideas and how to um vocalize and create language around them, but the practical essences of working with ceramics as a material.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, talking about that work that shrunk um 30% in the kiln, which um which was I think was the contact between us, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_00The tall one right there.
SPEAKER_01Oh right. Okay, so it wasn't the it wasn't the huge one. That was so that was meant to be much bigger.
SPEAKER_00Yes. The height, so even if you measure it now, it just sits under a meter, um, and it was built to 1.3.
SPEAKER_01Right. And when you're making works or conceiving works like this, do you build maquettes and have in your mind, you know, so that's a specific height. You made that to be part of it in an installation.
SPEAKER_00There is an element of um the history of making that I trust in my process that now I don't actually need to make marquettes unless I'm reimagining like the structural integrity of a work. So I often started, you know, what's presented here at Primavera, there were like three times the amount in the studio. And all of them made it to like the kiln, not all of them made it part like after the kiln. Um, so there were like lots of learning outcomes. Contact between us, um, that you mentioned just before, was the first endurance-based piece that I actually made for Primavera. And it was my kind of like, I put a lot of like uh a leap into the interface or like leaning into the unknown with contact between us because it was like the outcomes, anything could happen. I was firing a large gas trolley kiln and there weren't a lot of um, you know, pre training around like I had training in gas kilns, but this particular kiln, um, so I was tell us about.
SPEAKER_01This kiln because this kiln even has a name, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yes, Big Bernard. Big Bernard is um a part of the furniture at Jam Factory, and it's one of the most incredible resources. And I am so grateful how everything aligned that I was able to make this body of work at my time at Jam Factory. Um, you know, looking back and just seeing how um fortunate that was that was, I'll always be grateful. Um to make work of this scale now is gonna be a slower process for me because I'm setting up my own um new studio within mixed goods. Um it's definitely gonna be a little bit slower till I get my own trolley kiln. Um sorry, you you go? Keep going. Keep going. Gas firing is like driving a manual car. You're there. You're so when you take something to the kiln, the maker's hand starts to like disappear completely. The works have like a nature-bearing um like around melt point. So there's a few kind of melt points that you need to be careful of. That's 200 and around uh 575 degrees as well. That's when cracks and breaks or structural kind of forms will start to appear if they weren't um built very well. Um, so when you're gas firing, the level of being able to notch up um like an inular food, uh like a flu, so it's a little kind of um gauge where you can like ramp up flame or like bring the flame back or choke the oxygen in the air when you're getting to reduction stages. Um, and then the back flu as well. So you're you're really um applying more of the maker's hand by being a gas firing um technician.
SPEAKER_01You're actually driving it, you're driving the process all the time in a way.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And that's why I have like a preference for gas firing. Um, electric firing is still just as valid, but it's a bit more set it forget it. You can bake the cake and walk away.
SPEAKER_01Um and so just getting back to the idea of physical scaling, you were talking about structural integrity. So with a work like Contact Between us, is that just one work or is it a whole, is it two works put together? I mean, is it or is it one whole piece?
SPEAKER_00It's two works put together to make a whole. And it was this idea of like, I I worked on shelves, so to I shifted my empire practice to working on shelves so that there would be less disruption in the pieces when carrying to and from the kiln. Um shelf also means that you build on the on newspaper because it carries less kaolin, um, so less to make an imprint on the pieces as well. Um, but it allows for like the shifting and um I guess in drying processes and firing processes, it needs to shimmy and it needs to move a little bit freely on its own. If it was stuck on a shelf, then it would probably crack in different ways or like pull apart. Um, so this work was the actual making was quite performative. It was definitely um durational and endurance. The very bottom coils are very thick and they needed to be thick. I almost worked in thirds moving upwards and like decreasing the coil size as I moved up.
SPEAKER_01But it was just a renaissance culture.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's like um a weight as well. So working with different weights of the body, different pressure of my pinch. If I pressed harder, would it reveal a crack? Did I want that at that point? Um, how much control do I have within the chaos of like how they all entwined? Um the system of this piece starts out with one giant coil that like links into the other. And I need to overlap coils as well so that when they are firing, they don't rip away, that they actually fire nicely together.
SPEAKER_01It's incredibly complex. And so there's and that's and then you have to in terms of structural integrity, you have to have an an innate knowledge of how that is actually going to stand up as an object once it comes out of the kiln house and to be you know strong enough. Fascinating. Um, so we we better move on to your your commercial show with with Hugo Michelle, which was the next year, and um very seductively titled Wet from a Moonlight Swim, where you move back to a much smaller scale. Um, and you you you obviously looking from the works, it seemed that you reveled in doing this after that huge endurance piece.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I it was such an exciting show for me, like being represented, like um the opportunities that Primavera presented, and then you know, being backed by um Hugo and the Hugo Michelle teen was just like, you know, something that I I never imagined for myself. I thought I was at least 10 years away. Um, so putting in a lot more, like, you know, recovering from Primavera and then picking myself up quickly and being like, I've got a lot to say here too. And um, you know, quite an underpinning part of my work is my queer identity, um, you know, the the social kind of queer experiences that I have had. And I felt that it was pretty important to kind of use this opportunity to talk about non-binary experiences, um, and this idea of like, you know, unlaying these stories and forms that have no kind of real identity to themselves. So many people are often like, they coral or they this, and they're kind of um like androgynous in a way, um, but they they like stand for themselves. So I I did really appreciate that I got to explore small scale and then more wall-based works. Um, and there's some medium sculptures in this. And I had a really beautiful friend, Lex Stoby, who I met at George Street Studios. Um, so like the integrity of my experiences holding um relationships that are really important. Lex made the plints for the show as well. So they were um black-stained plints that I feel complemented.
SPEAKER_01And I I I've read in the in in that in relation to this show, the word um primal airy chaos came up, which is apiron. Um, what what is that as a concept that you're obviously very interested in or or were struggling or was trying to find?
SPEAKER_00Is it um I feel like I, in terms of what's like innately within all of us, um, experiences, values, and beliefs, and something that just is birthed out of like a natural way of like that primary kind of um I'm not thinking this through and over-intellectualizing it, but it's just something innate that falls like in our hands onto the material.
SPEAKER_01That must be a great feeling when you get that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I feel that we all maybe have some vices. Um I lean into making as you know, a pr a predominant vice in my life.
SPEAKER_01Um, and and in this exhibition, you know, you it I know that you use a number of old and new techniques. Um, can you point out an old technique and a new one by a particular work?
SPEAKER_00I think Yes, such a great question. Um, so the vertical compressed coil just moving around and shifting, just like the slight angle of a wrist. That's a very old technique where I was exploring like this um, you know, just have experience stack on to themselves. So, yeah, this is a great example for work that's now up um of just shifting in it. And then I I create little key holes. So that started to be a new thing exploring. So trying to find space between the layers that also helped technically with drying times and like managing even drying and um, you know, looking at like how pieces of this scale they they will need more pockets of openness, so that's why they have this tapered vessel form. Um and then the new explored forms are the way that I'm rolling and making wall-based works, and then the horizontal no, the vertical flares, these ones are horizontal. But yeah, so the wall-based ones go between different types of slabs or thick coils that I start with. And this is one of my favorite pieces from the show. Um, I feel like it was it was the last piece that I made for the show as well. And it's almost like when you start making work, um, how much does need to be produced to really articulate a level of what you're communicating? And I think this piece did it really well. Um, you know, it's unruly, it kind of just flows between, and what you mentioned before about primordial, like um that, yeah, just like allowing it to be what it needs to be. There's a little bit of chaos and flow and the ribbon-y type aspects of it of just like how layers fold and unfold onto themselves.
SPEAKER_01And um it's sort of fascinating. So and I can see how then you if we move to your next the with a group show, uh, Hugo Michelle, where you seem to have really honed in on those practices. Um I don't I can't remember what the group show was called. But um what was it?
SPEAKER_00Responsive forms.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um that there you've got you've started to use colour uh much more. I can there's blue, blues, and and sort of um was that a direct sort of so that was that's what you and and and I I know with the work that we have here, which we're going to move on to in a minute, this is is this the direction you'll you're you're taking now?
SPEAKER_00I did like I really um I'm really intrigued by a body, a clay body, and how that has these distinct metaphors to our bodies and the idea of surface and what we apply to a surface. I um I do do quite a lot of glazing and I am excited about presenting in the future like a glazed body of work. However, that needs a lot more distilling. Um, these works are actually hand wedged. And I started doing that with a light stain from my grad show body of work. And it's the idea of things that stain us or stay with us. Um, and you know, from 0.5 all the way up to like 10%, different types of oxides and stains. This particular work that you see here is a combination of a lilac and a grey, but it produced this really beautiful, almost muted type of blueing. Um and it was yeah, it was just like a quality that I really felt communicated something that I was lamenting on. Um, and the bright blue and the the I use a Raku body because it takes and absorbs the added um moisture from adding an oxide stain with a bit of water, making it like a pancake mix, and then putting it into the clay body and then wedging. Going back to wedging, I generally do a spiral wedge or a chrysanthemum wedge, depending on how much clay I'm wedging at a time. This particular piece here took me actually like three weeks non-stop, about five hours a day to actually wedge. Um, and then I was able to make the work from that. Um, a lot of the pieces from this form were the summary of my time at Jan Factory as well. Um, and I was just really excited to be invited into this show by um the Hugo Michelle team. Um they were, you know, giving me a lot of beautiful opportunities, and I'm very grateful for them. And they just knew that I had some pieces in the workshop. Um, so it was really lovely to be included and to present contact between us as well here in South Australia.
SPEAKER_01So we if we this this show leaves beautifully on to the the the wonderful mini installation we although I'm I loathe to call it a mini installation because it there's a a lot of work here. Um this wonderful list called Words We Devour 2023. Um I can see the so you've used a stain um here for the and it's a brown, a black stain. Yeah, this isn't take us through the take us through. Um I think we can play a video of the of the exhibition where I'm sitting um joyously, joyously.
SPEAKER_00Take us through this this um so this this it was so lovely to be able to present this work as well. So thank you, Amanda. Um there this clay is uh a black Keens midfire and it does contain a pretty dense stain. It has this almost charcoal, um, deep chocolatey brown, but like real strong hues of a of a black through the work. Um and I selected this clay for like practical reasons, but also because I find it's like building with porcelain. And I find that the skill set to build with porcelain, it's one like approaching melted butter and trying to layer up melted butter. And so it spoke back endurance or this continual threat of metaphorical um unravelings of our human and social experience. And I just felt like this was a really good opportunity to present this clay body and this type of work. Um, the pieces that crawl over two walls has been like quite a long dream of mine to work site specifically. Um and when presented with this opportunity, and so thrilled that you um, you know, liked and delete in the very rough sketches that I drew.
SPEAKER_01Um well I was yeah, I was going to ask, because I mean I have to admit, you know, this this working in this space has major, I mean, it it the space is a constraint. So are you really lent into that then? I see.
SPEAKER_00I did, and I I found it to be curious and so lovely. And I I love the idea of people taking a lot of time um using a toilet to be able to really take in the thing. I love that there's that work that only if you're sitting down that you realize that there's a work behind the door. Um, and I I found that like working with the nooks and crannies of spaces. Um, you know, there's a philosopher Gaston Bachelard who really talks about the home. And so I think, you know, in future endeavours, I would love the opportunity to work more in um people's homes on commissions or working within spaces where you know you can bring pieces that crawl all over um yes.
SPEAKER_01You were and um we've mentioned before the seductive title um that that that you often apply it to the works, and and I think all your titles are very thoughtful and and and very well thought out. I mean, here for instance, we've got um well the exhibition title, Words We Devour, and then individual titles like It's Juicy When It All Fits and Moves in Various Rhythms, which I really understand a lot more now. Then we've got warm arms reaching over and holding tight. We have just now from this perspective, I can see right through you. And then um, you seem a bit taller these days. Um, did you title the show first or do you do the works and then form the titles? What comes first for you?
SPEAKER_00Um, it's a lot of back and forth. It's collecting enjoyment lists through the making process, it's re-evaluating the works at different stages technically. Um, the conceptual kind of dialogue between technical um is always bouncing to and from. I did title the works first and then titled the show. And then I played around with the title of the show because and landed on words we devour because I I feel like it really spoke to the premise and this continual thread in my practice around relational experiences and that these are little offerings of different little narratives using tacit knowledge and like tactile storytelling. Um, so I'm trying to like always you know give small hints or curiously lead an audience, um, whoever's um in company of the work into being a bit more curious about these things that you might say to somebody else and saying them to the objects as if they were little beings onto themselves.
SPEAKER_01Interesting. So that's interesting because I was going to ask you, you know, with are you using the titles to speak to yourself or speak to the viewer or speak to both? But clearly you're speaking you're using them for both. You're speaking to yourself, but you're also through that and through yourself and through the object, speaking to the viewer with the hint with the the little um hint of the title. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, it's interesting. So what's next on the horizon for you?
SPEAKER_00Well, I have been invited into a really exciting show at a jam factory. Um, it's their 50th show, and I'm leaning into some research and development um for a really exciting solo at um Hugo Michelle's in like the next in the next year. Um I'm really excited about a research project on the minerals collection at the South Australian Museum. So I'm working on lots of funding applications right now for that.
SPEAKER_01Well, good luck. We look forward to watching that, watching those faces. Um, Sam, thanks so much. It's been uh such a pleasure talking with you, and it's such a pleasure living with the work. Um and I have to also say huge thanks to my colleague Isabella Chow, who's produced and facilitated this iteration and the whole of the Love for Art series. And want to say goodbye, everyone. Please come and see the exhibition by appointment, and you'll be able to reference this interview archived on our website and Instagram at LoveArt International. See you all later. Bye.