Flow’s winter show explores the rhythms of making in two practices – ceramics and weaving. Ceramicist Iva Polachova’s work finds rhythms in the repetitive techniques of hand-building, where her hands slowly build forms through repeated movement. This process is echoed in the mark-making of her surfaces, with her signature patchwork of parallel lines. Weaver Lizzie Kimbley finds daily inspiration from walks in local wilderness, which she reflects on as she patiently creates her wall-pieces: each work quietly contemplates nature and place, reflecting the rhythm of her daily rituals in the repeated patterns of weaving.
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Reflecting on her the rhythms inherent in her work, Iva Polachova explains how “The joy of making is to be aware and in harmony with the rhythms of the making process. The form, size, material and method of creating a hand-build piece guide the rhythm of its making. The external decoration - interplay of marks, glazes and the clay body all create rhythms on the surface of the piece. The finished piece has it own unique voice.”
Polachova uses traditional hand-building methods of making: coiling with hand rolled coils, molding, slabbing, pinching, scraping. She uses a variety of clays from porcelain to grogged stoneware, sometimes including courser grit, and mixes clays to achieve different qualities and colours. Her restrained palette is largely matte white glazes, occasionally using slips and oxides under the glaze. Creating a range of forms including bowls, cups, jugs as well as decorative vessels and sculptural pieces, each piece is unique, and individually made even if part of a set – they are “made with the same attention and commitment, whether big or small, utilitarian of decorative”, Polachova explains, giving each piece its own character.
Kimbley is a textile artist and weaver based in Norfolk. She works with woven textiles, natural dyes and basketry techniques to create contemporary artworks exploring responsible design and connection to nature and place. Her recent work for ‘Rhythms of Making’ is inspired by daily walks in the marsh and meadows close to home. Walking the same paths each day becomes a ritual, time carved out for slowing down, paying attention and losing oneself in the moment.
She describes how: “The rhythm and repetition with every step becomes meditative, and this sense of calm and reflection is echoed in the delicate weave structures and mindful stitching. The wandering weft referencing the repetition of daily walks to create quiet and meditative pieces that celebrate time spent in nature.”
The pieces in this exhibition have been made from two materials. Patchwork stitched pieces use linen textile offcuts leftover from another local maker, some of which Kimbley pieces hand-dyes using madder, walnut, meadowsweet and yarrow. Other woven pieces are made using handmade cordage, paper yarn and industry waste yarn, including hand-dyed textiles, to create a combination between reclaimed and re-imagined materials.
