Emma Bowen
February - July 2019
Artist Emma Bowen digs and processes locally found clay to make projects with local communities. Digging the material straight from the ground, the processing of the earth is laborious and time consuming; drying, smashing, sieving, rehydrating, sieving, drying. Each step creating remnants and discarded sediment until a refined sticky substance can be tested for making and firing properties. These may find themselves turned into vessels, objects or returned to the earth from where they came, the same but changed. The changes may have occurred through the processing, from firing in situ on a bonfire, or simply from having been dug up.
In Chelmsley Wood Emma is using clay sourced whilst on walks around the green areas of CW with fellow artist Marie Prestleton. Her project Collector Road will culminate with a pit firing of the dug red clay in the summer.
