Ash, Memory, and Home: Michelle Grimm's New Studio Practice
At Trove, we seek out makers whose work stops you mid-step, pieces that ask something of you before you've even decided to buy them and Michelle Grimm is one of those makers. Working from her newly built studio in Vancouver, BC, Michelle translates memory, material scarcity, and a changing landscape into surface and clay, moving away from fire-based methods toward custom clay bodies, slips, and wood ash gathered from the places she's lived and traveled. We asked her to write about her practice in her own words.
By Michelle Grimm
My process is ever changing. From limitations in materials, studio access, limitations in outdoor firings and my own capabilities the one constant in pottery is the need to adapt. I’ve recently completed building out my own studio in Vancouver, BC and have spent the last few months organizing and considering how this latest change will affect my process. Wood is a primary industry here and indigenous cultures have a rich history of creating works utilizing this resource in totems, baskets and ceremonial dressings. My use of wood is not necessarily drawing on this rich history but rather a response to the changes that are occurring in the world around us. Mining operations change their methods limiting the minerals available in the creation of glazes, climate change and the resulting forest fire seasons are extending thereby limiting the ability to have outdoor firings. Vancouver is a relatively new city, as the population grows many creative spaces are lost in order to accommodate the growing population resulting in a cycle in pursuit of stability to continue creating without the worries of eviction.
I’m lucky to have access to a studio to call my own and as I consider the constant changes, I’m moving my practice to better negotiate the limitations imposed by the above concerns. My new body of work for an upcoming group show called, Capture; surface/depth is an exploration of memory and sense of home in which I’m utilizing new means to translate my memories of time spent in the Outback of Australia, where I lived for several years, into varied surface dimensions through custom clay bodies and slips to my pieces. This work is a departure from my previous in that I’m not relying on fire-based methods while still retaining the energy and feel of that practice.
I’ve incorporated natural materials in my studio which serves to ground me in those methods and also provides a sensory reminder to the natural landscape. The smell of cedar that I’m greeted with every morning when I enter my workshop helps to tether me in a way that other senses cannot. The new works utilizes wood ash from various places I have visited from Oaxaca, Mexico to restaurants in my vicinity. This use of “waste” products also helps me to use materials that are readily available with limited environmental impact to harness the unpredictability of my previous work.
My hopes are that whomever touches my work will feel the calmness of handling something that is grounded in nature but also recognize the wildness of the materials and appreciate the inherent unpredictability that informs my work.
