The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 53 No 2 July 2014

Focus: Eme rging
21 Reasons to Repeat Myself is a 21-piece ceramic installation
inspired by tribal artefacts and imbued with magical and
otherworldly qualities that contain a life force or 'soul' of their own.
The work explores how each of us embody the physical and mental
legacy of all those who came before us.
From inception, these sculptures were always about the collective
- 21 individuals belonging to 1 tribe. At 21 we cross the threshold
into adult maturity and the human soul is said to weigh 21 grams.
Repetition has strong links w ith superstition and the compulsive
need to repeat can be both comforting and disturbing. Like the
generational use of patterns that convey the identity and beliefs of
tribal people, my patterns explore how the notions of individuality
and free will are inextricably linked to familial connection.
In this private and intuitive act of making I build elaborate, time-consuming sculptures that I hope
will engage people in a moment of wonderment. I hand-coil each sculpture with porcelain paperclay
and use a variety of small tools to create surface patterns, intuitively and without sketching. Fired to
stoneware temperatures and left unglazed, each piece is sanded to enhance the bone-like quality of the
porcelaneous clay body.
www.lorraineguddemi.com
PROFILE:
Lorraine Guddemi
Lorraine Guddemi, 21 Reasons to Repeat Myself, 2013, porcelain paperc1ay, hand built, unglazed, h.17-M.5cm, w.8.5-
38cm. d.4.5-22cm; phOl0S: Greg Piper
THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS JULY 2014 53