a few months ago i photographed the work of my friend, ceramic artist gabrielle naptali. i love to listen to gaby talk about her work and the drive behind it, so it seemed only natural that i would get her on here to answer some questions.
gaby is a sculptor working in ceramics. as she explains, she utilises naturally occurring processes to produce her work, a technique she has spent years experimenting with. her finished sculptures are very textural, often having cracks and fissures in the surface much like those found in the wild. i love the work of land artists such as robert smithson and hamish fulton, artists whose work is directly linked to it’s natural surroundings, and gaby’s work, with it’s organic feel and mixture of processed and unprocessed aspects, has elements of the land art movement which i find really interesting. gaby’s hands-on approach, mastery of techniques and unreliance on technology is something i respect and admire in today’s electronic world. her work makes me remember that there is still a whole world beyond the virtual, something i forget too easily.
enough of me though, onto gaby…
are there any moments in your childhood (or later) that directly influenced your decision to work in clay and the type of work you do?
i have a powerful memory of walking home from infant school in between showers on a rainy day, i must have been 5 or 6 – we lived next door. as i left the gates i was drawn to look into a vast black puddle at the iridescent rainbows of car oil swirled on the surface and caught sight of a small pale island that was seeping it’s colour into the black. squatting down to fish it out I found a small piece of clay that squidged and dissolved between my fingers. i immediately fell in love with clay but to my dismay it dissolved into watery slip. suddenly i was dragged into the present as a south ascot mother’s accent shouted ‘get arter that puddle yer dirty little caaa or i’ll tell ya maaver!’
you encourage and instigate natural processes in the material to provide certain effects, how much of this is planned and intended and how much is accidental or spontaneous?
it’s pretty much totally controlled. i’ve spent a long time exploring what clays want to naturally do and exploit this to my own ends, i don’t like to feel i can see too much of my own hand in the work. although the pieces are designed initially, i work intuitively so they work out quite different sometimes than my original drawings. i believe in listening to my instincts. i want the pieces to have a sense of ‘foundness’ and natural evolution, with the kiln as the final arbiter that ‘sets the clay in stone’. having said that, i always work with a piece after the firing to make it finished.
does all your work have a personal element to it or are some pieces purely created for the intended client? are you working on any personal work away from the main ceramic work?
my clay pieces always have a personal element. i think the work would be soulless if i couldn’t find a connection with it.
away from my main ceramic work i’m working on a large installation idea. it’s exciting for me as it’s incredibly personal in a way that I hope most people will be able to ‘feel the bumps’ and yet take something positive from it. life is about chance. it’s a handful of cards dealt by nature, the dealer turns over one occasionally and we choose whether we take it or not. if we are a bit lucky, determined and grab our chances we can reinvent ourselves and grow as people.
are there any artists, ceramic or not, whose work you really like?
yes loads, but those that spring immediately to mind are; ewan henderson, lucie rie, antoni tapies, ruth duckworth, claudio casanovas, ben nicholson, barbara hepworth and antony gormley to name a few.
you work with a lot of young people – how did this come about and do you find it rewarding? does it allow you to look at your own work differently?
i started doing workshops when at crescent arts 15 years ago. my first young people were for 10 weeks at an east hull secondary school where i recognised a lot of versions of myself, as a young person with difficulties. making has always helped me feel better and sharing is rewarding. it’s a treat to see that happen to other people; something that never loses it’s shine. the important thing for me is to maintain a good balance of community and my own work. and now you mention it, a strong thread through my work is about things coming together and how they affect each other.
what do you consider your best work and why?
i haven’t made that yet – but i intend to keep on making until i’m physically incapable, i hope to live to at least 99 and have all my faculties.
any words of wisdom?
i don’t know if it counts as wisdom but i find myself saying ‘never use a rubber as the mistakes will show you where the right line needs to be’ and also quoting t.s eliot ‘back through the unknown remembered gate…’ (little gidding), which to me means that i know when something is right as it jogs an intuitive memory of space.
background
gabrielle studied ceramics at edinburgh college of art before lecturing in ceramics at westwood college of art and design, scarborough and working as youth arts outreach artist at crescent arts. she is highly experienced in art education, working with adult and youth groups and with many organisations including north yorkshire county council, imove, coastival and the cultural olympiad. she has been working as a freelance sculptor for 14 years and opens her garden and studio every year as part of north yorkshire open studios.
links
you can follow gaby’s work on here website gabriellenaptali.com or check her out on twitter.
