Intimate Ceremony: Ceramic Bath Accessories
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Rochester Institute of Technology RIT Scholar Works Theses 11-15-2001 Intimate ceremony: Ceramic bath accessories Kelly Clark Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.rit.edu/theses Recommended Citation Clark, Kelly, "Intimate ceremony: Ceramic bath accessories" (2001). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Accessed from This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by RIT Scholar Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of RIT Scholar Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Rochester Institute ofTechnology A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences in Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts Intimate Ceremony: Ceramic Bath Accessories by Kelly Fielding Clark 11-15-2001 Final Approvals ChiefAdvisor A9e-4 e c /1~-~ print name signature Date / Associate Advisor jl;LL. "t iTItt-- i C(A//fvf print name signature Date signature Date SAC Chairman pnntname signature Date I, Cl ~ ,hereby deny permission to the Wallace Memorial Library of T to reproduce my thesis in whole or in part. Please refer any party wishing access to this thesis to me directly at Date II-IS;,. ot__ TABLE OF CONTENTS Thesis Proposal 1 Preface 2 Introduction 3 Ritual 5 Historical Research 7 The Work 26 Conclusions 30 Appendix I (technical information) 31 Appendix II (color plates) 32 Personal Glossary 47 Bibliography 48 THESIS PROPOSAL Forms for containers that serve specifically as accessories to the bathing ritual existed in nearly every early culture, the most recognized being those of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. The bath as an experience is warm and gende. It is a decadence all its own, being at the same time a cultural imperative. The bath combines into one tidy concept, aspects of play, intimacy, cleansing, ritual and contemplation. I intend to explore objects and forms from antiquity forward, adapting and personalizing them to supersede the disposable culture of modern beauty and hygiene. I propose to address the most pertinent forms; the botde, the box and the jar. These are objects of leisure and luxury, on a very personal and intimate scale. As they are meant to be used, they are decorative, but durable. The bath is not only a custom of cleansing, it is one ofindividual ceremony and reflection. Much may have changed over time, but the ritual of the bath remains along with its accessories. PREFACE When I was a small we had two child, bathrooms in our house. There was one for my father and one that my mother and I shared. My father's bathroom was blue and brown, and our bathroom was pink and white. This pink tiled shrine had a long counter under a mirror., with several drawers beneath. On this counter sat number of any botties, boxes and small pots containing perfumes, lotions, creams and various other beauty preparations. These were my mother's treasures and I was in awe of them. I spent hours and days as a young girl playing at that counter, making myself pretty and perfumed. When we visited my grandmother's house, she had that same cluster of treasures, on a black counter, and first thing every morning, she sat at her mirror and "put on her face". When I was about ten, my parents bought me my own vanity dresser for my bedroom. Soon I had my own collection of miniature glass bottles and small boxes. I now realize that as a young child I began training in a ritual that women in our society perform throughout their entire lives. As an artist, I find that I have a need and desire for my work to be interactive. It is important to me that people not simply look at my work, but that they handle it and use it in order to fully experience it. This is how I make my connection with my audience. When I found pottery. As education ceramics, I found a way to create interactive objects, specifically my interactions. I I strove to discover progressed, I began to refine my ideas about these As grew, why I make the things I make. As I found my voice, I found my motivations. I am a romantic at heart, and that has affected the nature of the work I create. I have returned to the rituals of femininity handmade objects of leisure and learned in my childhood. I want to create beautiful objects, luxury, mass-produced. much of life is machines things that cou/dbe bought cheaper if they were Too today more. I know I am not alone in desire for things and technology and ways to go faster and do my I am a maker. made by a person instead of a machine. This is why INTRODUCTION The ritual of the bath is one of cleansing, caring, renewal and rejuvenation, not only of the body, but of the spirit as well. This ritual has evolved from antiquity as a common ground across gender and class. There is a vast history of the ceremony itself, as well as of the objects associated with its performance. My work has been an exploration of objects and forms from antiquity forward, adapted and personalized in an effort to improve upon our disposable culture of modern beauty and hygiene. It is the depth of this history that strengthens my work and endows each piece with a greater significance than exists in similar, mass-produced contemporary objects. Historical reference manifests itself in my work in a variety of ways. The idea, the concept behind the work, is the ritual ofbathing and personal beautification. The ritual itself has roots in ancient history for both sexes. From antiquity, individuals of both sexes and all classes have collected accessories ofvarying quality for everyday use as well as for funerary provisions. The objects I have chosen to explore were selected from examples of accessories used throughout history. My forms are inspired by traditional forms such as the Greek aryballos and the Egyptian unguent jar, as well as nineteenth century European glass dresser sets. Even the materials used in creating the work demonstrate historical material of profound tradition influence. Pieces were formed using a porcelain clay body, a ceramic an increase in which has rendered it a from China to Europe. Its inherent purity leads to expense, creations. Other historical luxury in itself. Porcelain is the ultimate material for these treasured of objects were executed in references are found in the surface details. Many ofthe earliest these chosen for their and for their stone, such as alabaster or marble. My glazes were subtiety the gemstones were inspired the resemblance to the natural materials used in antiquity, and by multi-cultural provide a richness of reference and stoppers on Chinese snuff bottles. These histories content to the work, a springboard for ideas and concepts as well as a backdrop against which to view the contemporary. In a field with as much historical import and resource as we have in ceramics, particulady in regards to utilitarian and ritual objects, one must research one's predecessors before making anew. Knowing our history gives us a better sense of our own place within the field. It gives us a context other than ourselves and our own time, broadening our perspective. As a student of the humanities, I am fascinated by the stories behind objects and their uses. As a student of ceramics, I find the history of my field invaluable as a resource. As a maker, I find inspiration in the artifacts of the many historic cultures we have discovered. RITUAL Webster's defines the word ritual as meaning /. an establishedform ofconducting a religious or other rite 2. anypractice or behavior repeated in aprescribed manner. By these definitions, we all of us perform many rituals everyday, though in our native haste we have ceased to relish them and now tend to call them routines. Most people follow these routines as habits, such as the order in which we perform the tasks of getting ready for work in the morning or of going to bed at night Some people have more specific moments set aside in their day to perform some ritual Some of us sit down with a cup of coffee or hot tea at a certain point in the day, others have a quiet time to spend reading and most of us follow the daily ritual of checking and responding to email in an effort to maintain modern but communication. These are only a few of the rituals performed regulady in society, they are certainly not inherently contemporary. In days past, at least amongst the wealthier classes, the routines of dressing in the morning much more than the fifteen and preparing for bed at night were highly ceremonial and required ritual minutes I spend on these tasks. Before the advent of the phone, people once performed the though now a handwritten ofletter writing as the sole means of communication over long distances, treatments were letter seems inefficient and old fashioned. Prior to the Industrial Age, most beauty and care of the was made at home by the same hands that used them, and the cleansing body highly hands and feet were washed as an ritualized. In societies where bathing was not an everyday activity, reserved for religious purification and after act of hospitality and full body cleansing was cleansing the event could become quite extravagant. illness. In cultures where bathing was a daily exercise, excursion to the public while the The Romans developed the bath for men into a daily social houses, servant whose sole was the execution of mistress ofa Roman household had a specific responsibility her lady's daily toilette.