Philip Cornelius

Artist Statement   |   Show Record & Vitae

	The Grove Cone 10, Porcelain Thin Ware 17” x 11” x 5”				Golden Bird Cone 10, Porcelain Thin Ware 10” x 9¼” x 3”
	Facing the Witch Porcelain Thin Ware with sprayed surface				Green Mountain Cone 10, Porcelain Thin Ware 9” x 15¼” x 2½”

The continuity of my work is on a time line that goes from the present back to the spring of 1960. I have always worked from the point of view of an artist using clay and porcelain as a means of expressing various ideas that have affected me strongly.

In 1969 I was making large plates and through that process was able to discover a way to make forms from the clay that was left on the large plaster bats. The clay was very thin (one twenty-second of an inch thick). I began to work with it an developed an original process. I wanted the work to be so light that it would have the felling of surprise and disbelief. It did. I have produced several hundred pieces since that time using the "thin-ware" process. This method can be seen in all of the twenty slides shown here and has been the main thrust of my work. Never in the history of ceramics has anyone worked using this technique and I have been able to construct the pieces in the most simple and direct technique, creating a signature look.

I chose to follow the teapot form for several reasons. The first was the complexity of that for. To build that kind of pot you had to coordinate a minimum of four parts. There was a lid, a handle, a spout and a main containing form, as well as perhaps, an infuser. I wanted to keep my teapots simple and direct, however at the same time, turn them into a new and dynamic form. At that time (1970) no one had done teapots as an art idea. There were all of these parts to be stretched, changed and looked at in a new way.

I have been powerfully affected by the image of the siren. The idea of a singer, perhaps a song-bird or a young girl, luring men to their deaths with music has held my interest for a very long time. I find some humor in the idea of demise. The pieces are autobiographical and I am able to poke fun at myself as the child of divorced parents in the 1930's when that institution was almost unknown in America. The representation of the siren takes on many forms.

Almost all of my work shows my interest in firing porcelain to extreme temperature levels under an application of charcoal to which the porcelain is very responsive. I consider this a major achievement as this was an unknown process and I had to dream it up myself.

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