THEODORA
CHORAFAS
With clay I create membranes to wrap the void.
The earth-clay which I mold becomes an extension of my own body.
By transforming my material, I transform myself.
By going to the limits of my material’s possibilities, I approach closer to my own limits.
Recommended by Homo Faber Guide
These forms appeared to me as an automatic writing. At first glance they seemed strange to me but I embraced them as creatures that decided to enter my world, not fully expressed yet but announcing a new reality.
Thus, I gave all my care to beautify them, painstakingly decorating their “skin”, affirming their legitimity.
Stoneware covered with colored terra sigillata, raku fired at 1050 C. Larger size around 30cm.
Undo my pieces as soon as I have finished them.Then mourn the world of forms I have created.Grief and tears…
But in the fluidity of the countless pieces of clay I preciously collect, lies the seed of a world of new possibilities.
Smoked clay, cotton thread, larger size 50cm.
To reach the point of fusion between my inner and outer self.
I always come back to the archetypal ceramic form : the vessel.Whether box, bowl or pitcher, it is that which connects me to clay-ware, that which is recognizableby all.
The object I shape here is first and foremost functional, practical. As its symbolical dimensionhas taken second place, I can lightly engage in a game, a variation on a given theme.That’s what my teacher Aline Favre (potter and musician), used to call “ Performing one’smusical scales ”.
Often, at the outset, I set down rules. I keep to them as long as they are useful to the evolutionof my forms. But it sometimes happens that these rules lead me to a dead-end, confining meinto a barren system. That’s when I must breach these rules, devise new ones and reactivatethe creative process.
