I am currently working on clay tiles that are part of “The Decay of the Rural Landscape” series.
The focus of my project is to take a close look at the rural landscapes of Canada and the United States and how their relics are dwindling. The traditions that are embedded in the land, the people, and the architecture are fading, falling, and selling out to a more modernized world and to cooperate industry. Higher population demands are having the effect of an urban sprawl. Population and cities are growing; cul-de-sacs and suburban cookie cutter homes in many places are taking over the countryside. Farmland is now more profitable for housing development sites on the real estate market than serving one of our quintessential needs in the production of foods. The farms that are still around are transforming with an industrial more steel based aesthetic and the barn as we know it will one day be of the past, a memory. This is why one of the major points of this project is to document the rural Minnesota countryside, where I am from, and capture the relics of the past through photography and clay landscapes.
I do this first by visiting and revisiting some of the key locations that are involved in the chain of events taking place; what the countryside use to look like, what its moving tward, and where we are inevitably going. I have been photographing the population’s push for sustainable energy (Windmills), the new developments taking over, historic buildings, farmsteads, roundel barns, and rural life. Many of the photographs are taken at peek points in the day, sunrise and sunset for color and light quality.
I then narrow down the key elements that I wish to represent in the form of clay wall-piece landscapes. After that I use techniques such as relief carving, transfers, decals, and low fire glazes.
My hope through this project is that the rural landscapes that I, and many others have grown up with will be commemorated in the way they should be; not as a distant memory, but something tangible to be shared will all. I strongly believe it is important to document and preserve this way of life, this history.
