My work with the porcelain cup-shaped sculptures I’ve created is to represent the state of the world’s glaciers in the face of climate change: some of these pieces appear to be melting, others disintegrate in water while particles of clay “calve” off of them, and the ones in “Saskatchewan Glacier” are constructed of snowflake shapes barely holding together in the form of a cup. I’ve employed the archetype of the cup as it is a vessel associated with the act of drinking; nearly seventy percent of the world’s freshwater is currently held in ice, and a significant amount of the drinking water we have in the Canadian prairie, where I live, is what geologists refer to as “glacial wastage,” a term that makes me morose. The Saskatchewan Glacier, a glacial “toe” of the Columbia Icefield in Alberta, Canada, contributes to the inflow of lakes and reservoirs, our water sources for agriculture, hydropower, and industrial and municipal uses. Besides the economic implications of their disappearance, I mourn the loss of the glaciers, ancient rivers of ice whose beauty and water sustain me, and this work is my tribute to them.
Using a medium that is geologically connected to them, my clay-based cups in “Saskatchewan Glacier” represent the fragility of the glaciers at this historical moment – the paper-thin branches of their porcelain snowflakes are barely touching one another, resulting in cups so fragile that a draft in a room could destroy them. Many of these cups do not survive firing, and needless to say, the ones that do don’t hold water. During installation, many break, and their destruction, resulting in porcelain “snowflakes” on the gallery floor, further indicates the ephemerality of the glaciers they represent. While I produce more of these pieces for each show, what lasts of each is only the documentation of its existence; these pieces therefore participate “in the temporality that is not defined by the continued existence of something in time and space, but by the constant capacity to be updated, and even enriched as it is discovered by a receiver and being, thus to be conceived as an experience”.[i] Through these cups and the performance of their own inevitable collapse, I hope to elicit a response in others that will nudge them towards greater awareness of the urgency needed to mitigate climate change.
Another work in this series is titled “Calving.” According to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Centre, calving is “a process by which ice breaks off a glacier’s terminus.”[ii] This piece engages time as a medium in addition to clay. Unfired porcelain cups are placed into vases with two inches of water each day. Immediately, flecks of porcelain appear to “calve” or jump off from the surface of the cup and “snow” down to rest on the bottom of the vase. Each cup’s disintegration is unique and happens at its own rate, normally taking between two and five hours. On the wall to the side of the shelf with these cups disintegrating is an iPad with a macro film of this process taking place. Viewers are able to scroll through this short film at any pace they want and hence slow down or speed up this “calving” of a cup. Through this piece, viewers can experience the weight of what is taking place in real-time to the glaciers of the world.
The third work in this series, “Athabasca Glacier: 1918-2018,” is a set of fired porcelain cups that appear to be melting. This piece embodies the unequivocal connection between our drinking water and the melting of the world’s ice.
[i] Blanc, Nathalie and Barbara L. Benish. Form, Art and the Environment: Engaging in Sustainability Routledge, 2017, 5.
[ii] National Snow and Ice Data Centre (U.S.), https://nsidc.org/learn/cryosphere-glossary
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