Clay as Fabric

I have always been interested in fabric. I love the way it drapes and moves, creating infinite configurations. It has always been my favorite thing to paint and draw, and starting last semester, I began experimenting with imitating fabric in my ceramics life.

I began to roll very thin slabs onto muslin fabric. The fabric was for support as the clay would rip when trying to arrange into folds or drapes without it. At first I would just crumple the clay or sculpt small pieces into drape-like configurations. I was pretty happy with the initial experiments. I also made some sculptural cups with the same technique.

Since then, I haven’t been able to get into the studio much, but I have been trying to make more purposeful fabric sculptures. Using Elan Transfers, I put lace patterns onto my clay cloth and made some wall-hanging pieces. I also hope to move up in scale and potentially drape people in clay to fire that impression of the figure. I experimented with it a little bit (see below), but it was a bit of an epic failure. Thank you anyway to my partner for letting me drape him in clay.

Thanks so much for reading and I hope to show you all more updates soon!

~Jess R.