Feature

Paula Murray’s work first caught my eye when I was surfing the web as I often do, and was instantly captivated by a cover photo from Ceramics Art & Perception, Issue 102, December 2015/February 2016, which featured her exhibition “Connection X Connexion”. Even more to my astonishment was that Paul Murray was a Canadian Ceramic Artist, and her studio was open year-round. I vowed to contact her on one of my frequent trips to Ottawa to see if I could come by her studio for a first-hand experience. She was kind enough to invite me over during an October weekend this fall, just after she had arrived back from Taiwan where her work was featured in the “2018 Taiwan Ceramics Biennale”.

I found the cover photo – the juxtaposition of suspended porcelain scrolls strung together as a ladder leading to a large circular wall piece absolutely intriguing…poetic and symbolic – yet technically masterful – tactile and at the same time, physically delicate.

Ceramics is a challenging and complex craft. Unlike other visual art forms such as painting, working in clay relies on a natural element – fire, to achieve the final result. It’s not immediate, and the final form and surface is a journey – a dramatic physical transition from raw to vitrified clay to achieve the conceptual vision. For the ceramic artist, there’s a fine line between producing beautiful, finished work or pieces that can result in failure – exploded pieces, or severe cracking or collapsed vessels.

It’s rare to discover the complex technical mastery of porcelain that Paula Murray’s work reveals. I’m amazed at the technical journey she has taken to evolve and produce ever larger and fragile, thin-walled forms. She writes about this process:
“When I create a porcelain piece, I have to balance the physical and spiritual. You have to respect the material, which is the clay, and the process it goes through. Each piece I make has been on a journey. Porcelain’s fragility and its strength mirrors human experience and nature.” 1

“Through much trial and error with a very high loss rate, I have developed quite an expressive tool to explore my interest in our strength and fragility, and the ephemeral nature of life. The organic warping and cracking of the forms and the wonderful patterns that emerge are the result of the tension created as the clay shrinks in relation to the fibers, the thickness of the clay, and the speed of the drying process. The vessels are fired in stages. First they are fired unglazed to Cone 10 in an electric kiln using saggars filled with silica sand to support the forms. The stress cracks are filled with slips, glazes, eroded by sandblasting or knit together with paper clay as work on each piece continues. The work is completed in a small, low-temperature salt kiln. Terra sigilattas, slips and glazes are applied with an air-brush, with a final coat of sugared water to toughen the surface. The pieces are stacked directly touching each other, filling the kiln to enhance the flame patterns and texture induced by the reducing salted atmosphere. This kiln is fired to Cone 06 over eight hours, reducing heavily after 800°C (1474°F) and salted twice above the burners.” 2

1 credit: Fragile Beauty, The Ottawa Citizen, May 10th, 2008
2 credit: Paul Murray, Honoring the Natural World, by Nancy Baele, Ceramics Monthly, May 2006

In recent years, she has explored ideas in series, moving towards more complex installations to give voice to the exploration of natural forms and the human condition. You can learn more about Paula Murray’s work at https://www.paulamurray.ca/

Deborah McCarthy Studios, December 2018