Statement - COLETTE BEARDALL

I view the material in its various states as extremely fragile. However equal in its delicacy is its strength. Its resolve to survive millennia under the ground until someone unearths a shard from an ancient civilization to connect us to our former selves. Like the inherent precariousness of life itself. At this point in time I face a reckoning of how life’s journey is fraught with fragile moment in time and equally, how inner strength can carry us through. I find similar ground when thinking of the animals that I render and my material, strong yet yielding to various pressures.
Miraculous in their very presence on earth, but vulnerable to the changes thereon and particularly to the dangers that man imposes on them.
Clay also offers a compendium of difficulties at each and every one of its various stages. From its initial green and pliable state to the final firing. We await the outcome helping it along with our own manipulations and wishes for good results. When sculpting, I begin with a very rough decision as to the stance of the final figure and then build and subtract material until I am satisfied with the overall gesture. Adding and subtracting clay until a faint resemblance is reached. Then the finer details are included and manipulated. Painters suggest that a painting is never finished. I believe that to be true of my work also. It’s never finished. It’s left. This resembles what we are as human. Never completed until our dying breath. On a quest for enrichment and betterment.