A new direction for the connected forms

Two things had happened that both had a bearing on the development of this idea. I had seen a stacked form made from bees wax (see below) at an exhibition called 'When Forms Come Alive' that I had visited earlier this year. For more info please head to my write about this here www.weebly.com/editor/main.php#/  I had also seen some interesting stacked, totems at Ceramic Wales made by a ceramic artist called Guy Routledge. (See below)
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I started to explore ways in which I could stack these forms that would still make them look connected and organic. I was ken to avoid any linear look to these pieces as I was concerned that they may end up looking like the popular beach pebble stacks that pop up everywhere!

I began by using a base and rod that I borrowed off Rob my tutor, and experimented with different ways of stacking the circular forms using one central hole and no connecting segments. I did like how this looked, it is the first image below left, but I still felt it was too uniform and rigid, I needed something with more movement. I then experimented with placing the holes off centre to the left or right and then using small rings of clay in between cut at angles to create spaces in between each segment, see middle image below. I liked how this looked but wanted to see if I could further develop the idea by adding on extra segments onto the ovoids in the same way I had connected them when creating a sculpture designed to sit on a flat surface, see image far right and below. I thought that this final version worked really well and discussed this with my tutor and my peers and there was a lot of positive support for its potential. 

I decided I was going to try and create several versions of these forms using different clay bodies with different clay finishes, some of which I hoped could be used for my MA show. I was keen to see if I could also scale up the work and make a larger floor standing version.

I needed to consider how I would support the pieces and did some research into the best materials to use for the central stand. I concluded that steel rod and tube welded to a steel base would be best and went over to see if I could commission these from our engineering department at UCLAN. After some discussions a plan was agreed and the bases and stands would be fabricated there. I chose different heights of rod with corresponding bases of different diameters, I was confident that due to the weight of the ceramic components these would be sturdy enough not to tip over once assembled.