Function and circumspection
For the past few years many students graduating from crafts and applied arts courses have decided to work in the field of conceptual crafts where focus has been on emphasizing the relationship with fine art more than with craft and its history. Instead of focusing on the finished product and its physical qualities the students have been more interested in posing questions or examining the ideas that the objects are intended to display. The task of the craft object has then become to encourage discussions about issues such as taste, class and gender.
Other craft workers, such as ceramicist Ellen Ehk, have chosen to work in another way and her work is more closely linked to ceramic crafts and its long tradition than to contemporary art. In her objects intended for everyday use, function and tradition are at the heart. But this does not mean that her jugs and teapots avoid relating to the surrounding world and its problems. In comparison with those ceramicists working conceptually, her objects also do this but from a different angle.
In every piece of utility ware there is an inherent movement and mood. The soup terrine from the turn of the last century, designed in the style of National Romanticism, encouraged the users of this object to carry themselves upright and in a dignified manner and to ladle soup very seriously indeed. On the other hand, the bold and brightly colored 1970´s plastic dinner service is describ¬ing the act of eating as something opposed to the conventional and strict dining habits of the early 20th century and it expresses a desire to be free from those conventions. It´s encouraging jerky movements and sudden whims.
The cups, pots, and plates made by Ellen Ehk are expressing the complete opposite of the “Use and Throwaway” culture. Circumspection is a word one could use. The objects are encouraging the user to raise their cup very slowly and to create space and time for taking tea. And, last but not least, they are emitting a stubborn resistance against the phenomena of mass consumption, where those who are shouting the loudest or are acting most spectacularly are the winners – the very same rules that governs who gets the attention in the world of ceramics.
Her jugs and cups often has a broad base and stand firmly. The objects display sturdy, almost stocky bodies. The centre of gravity is low. This is a defining character of her artistic language. And yet the impression is not heavy or sluggish. A somewhat disrespectful parable could be that her ceramics are a cross between Barbapapa and an Asian tea ceremony. Many of the objects have a chubby, almost precocious personality – the spouts of the teapots are cunningly trunk like, on the chocolate mugs the handles are placed like arms holding on to the sides. The references are at the same time Asian but also hold serious reflections on function, together with great respect for ordinary everyday chores.
The glazes are traditional Asian reduction glazes. The bone ash in the glaze creates small microscopic bubbles that are refracting the light in a vivid but at the same time almost invisible way, a sign of her attention to detail, hard to discover for a viewer at the first encounter. All in accordance with Asian pottery tradition but quite possibly to the detriment of sales figures, as many buyers only dare to purchase identical products – she also allows the material, the porcelain to live and breathe. The cups are allowed to become a bit skewed during firing. Maybe it’s in the juxtaposition between expressions – the charmingly rotund and the serious and austere – that a kind of tantalizing tension emerges. When calm and serenity is not the most prevailing sense, of course.
Back to the expression. There is something in the seriousness of the objects created by Ellen Ehk that is unusual amongst young ceramic practitioners today. The objects speak with a low, subdued voice. But they still demand respect. Isn’t that something we would like to see more of in the current public debate?
Malin Vessby, crafts writer