Loo rolls and toilety things

Being now in the half term break I've had a breather to gather my scattered brain cells, attend to various bits and pieces at home and now this,  my neglected blob.

Since being back at school my myriad thoughts have gravitated towards 'focus', 'perception', and 'time' whilst concentrating on the figure, namely the portrait - the human face.  Lots of ideas to follow up and investigate although for the last couple of weeks my intentions have been solely to create work for an upcoming exhibition.  We have to organise an exhibition for this Fine art course anyway.

The opportunity of a collaborative group exhibition in the Edwardian Cloakroom in Bristol meant

creating art work as a response to the venue.  The venue is an Edwardian toilet, a purpose built building with both a male and female side and their own entrances.  The Council now makes it available as an exhibition and art space.  It is however, still very, well,.......... toilety!.


Thoughts went into overdrive but I kept coming back to the history of the place and the 'time' aspect.  I researched Edwardian life and after reading about their reluctance to acknowledge their bodily functions, decided to embrace the whole toilet thing and started thinking about what I could do with toilet roll.  After all, no matter how advanced we think we have become we are still subject to these same basic animal activities, albeit things are a bit softer and more quilted these days.

The layers on a toilet roll made perfect sense to me as I see time as layers.  Time is after all a human concept but often thought of in a linear way.  However, it makes more sense to me to see time as layers.  The earth has layered strata relating to time scales, and history is created by adding more layers to it.  

Being in the old building I couldn't help but imagine and think about the many people that would have  passed through its doors.  I imagined ghostly echoes and images of faces.  White ghostly faces on white toilet paper made sense to me here.  Happy people that would have visited in between shows at the theatre that had been opposite at the time.  Maybe people visited as they felt ill or emotional.  It must all be here, ingrained in the fabric of the walls, the walls that are peeling, exposing layers. 

 I intended my work for the ladies side.  Maybe it's because I can relate more to this side but it also feels more comfortable here.  

Initially I thought about carving into toilet rolls, carving faces while at the same time cutting through and exposing layers.  These would be my layers of time.  Was there some sort of hardener I could soak them in to enable me to do this?  I could think of nothing and so proceeded to work out how I would create toilet rolls with faces in plaster instead, although not completely at peace with the compromise.  I had it pretty much worked out and then it dawned on me that these needed to be porcelain! Yes that was it! Hard and shiny like the toilets and basins.  It made perfect sense and I loved the idea of the contrast to fragile paper.

First toilet roll created

Bridget at college was a great help and recommended a suitable porcelain clay for me to buy.  It  is suitably white and incidentally has flax fibres in.  It meant though that due to the time scales of drying and firing etc I needed to get them all done within a couple of weeks.  I worked out and created card templates that I could cut around on rolled out clay.  A circular shape for the top and bottom, a rectangle that would create my inner tube and a rectangle for the outer of the roll, so they are effectively hollow.

Additionally (after much thought on how to achieve it), I added the rolled paper texture to the top and what would look like the loose end of the roll to the side.  I indicated lines of perforations and had considered quilted textures too but decided to keep it more simple to make the time scale.

 In all I have created six toilet rolls.  I call toilet rolls big marshmallows in my house as I'm sure the kids must eat them, it's the only way to explain the rate they disappear.  (They'd break their teeth on this lot)

 I decided I needed at least six or seven to cover any breakages in the kiln as I wasn't convinced that I didn't have trapped air in at least the last joins when I put the tops on.  This is because I couldn't apply too much pressure here or the whole thing may have warped.

Two more examples whilst still wet clay.

Well, fingers crossed and they will survive firings and glaze.

To be continued..................