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Introduction
I could (and I guess that is what is expected from me, writing this thesis) guide you, the reader, through my writing. I could explain the whats and whys. Offer you an effortless access to my subject, telling you in advance what I will be writing about. Present to you the different chapters and arguments, arise your interest by promising a new point of view on the subject, and a thrilling amazement while reading my words. I should have started with an eye-catching sentence that would have retained your attention then.
But I won't write like this.
Why?
I believe it wouldn't convey the approach I have been developing throughout my studies. Let me explain just a little: Throughout the past years, I came to approach ceramics not as a tool to be used in order to envision, to give shape to an idea, but as a field to experiment with. I slowly distanced myself from the notion of a preconceived idea that I would then execute in ceramics. I started to approach ceramics with an open (or blank) mind: without notions of what it should turn out to be, with ideas not entirely defined, with no purposes of meaning. I opened myself to the material.
But I soon felt a constraint, in the fact that I have been asked to talk about my work. And this even before any artwork could be seen or touched. I have been asked to propose, through words, my ideas; to clarify them, to analyze my multiple trials and errors, to explain my process, to argue the infinite possibilities, to choose a direction and justify this choice, to discuss the steps I have been going through during the realization of the work, and then, when the work was there, to talk about it.
Why am I using the word constraint? What is it about language that I find difficult?
It is not so much about language in itself. I would easily acknowledge that I like words! I like to know where they come from, I like to know how to spell them correctly (otherwise, I have the feeling I show them no respect). I like to notice when the sound of a word expresses, in itself, the meaning of this word. I am attracted, interested, and concerned by language in itself.
But it is when I consider my artistic practice that a complex feeling appears: Not finding the right (or the good) words.
It is this feeling that motivated me to write the seventeen following texts. As you will discover quite promptly while reading, I raise many questions; as for the answers, well, in my view, I'm afraid I haven't found as many. But I would like to believe that it shouldn't be too big of a dilemma. Should you consider indispensable that I shed some more light upon my approach, let me just mention that I, by no means, consider my texts as a proper (whatever this word might mean) research about the topic of the verbal world. I would rather regard my texts as disparate reflections upon things I have, more or less unwittingly, came across. Therefore, you may feel perfectly free to read my texts in a random order.
This being said, I hope you will enjoy reading.
If you wish to read the rest of my thesis, please contact me!