Bonnie Lynch: Vessels

Lynch views the lack of predictability in the firing process as a facilitating factor in her work and welcomes the fortuitous effect chance plays. She suggests that she is open to the nuances that occur naturally. “I take notice of them, not actually creating them, but letting them happen. They are an opportunity to go in another direction.” The carbon from the manure and straw leaves large areas of intense, opaque dark grey or black and thin, veil-like touches of lighter shades. Some vessels emerge from the firing entirely white, others all black. These black ones have a particularly seductive quality, with a soft shimmer that is also present in lead or graphite.

The vessels have a distinct, elegant line that can be called handmade perfection. Indeed, Lynch handles shapes and volumes masterfully and achieves that specific quality of uneven evenness and irregular regularity characteristic of the hand. The surfaces are variously smooth or a bit rough, marked by fine hatchings or unsmoothed areas of coils. In a few cases, the surfaces have been deeply scratched. They are never glazed, however. Lynch says, “the glaze completely covers the texture and feel of the actual clay, which I don’t want to lose.”

The vessel form is a constant in her work. Despite the standard functionality of the form, her vessels eschew function and stand clearly as sculptural objects. “My works are always non-functional. I like the emptiness—it equates to negative space as in a drawing,” she explains. “The interior form, almost accidentally created, is as important as the exterior, which I’m more focused on when building these pieces. The interiors are more prominent after the firing than before. Very often they will be completely black, and suddenly there’s this infinite empty, negative space.” This negative space is like a rest beat in music—a pregnant pause that serves to enhance the tones surrounding it.