
Rock, stone and mountain are equivalent substances, despite their difference in sizes. They are characterized by strength, coldness, breakage, roughness, inelasticity, persistency, and longevity. Their age of formation is so immense and immeasurable, far beyond human’s origin. Nevertheless, the intermediate factor that separates each level of coarse resolution of clay, silt, gravel, boulders, rocks and mountains, is “time”.
The stoneness is more or less reflected in the ceramic work. The materiality of rock and clay is interconnected in a natural cycle. The process of “stone-creating” for these works, which is not “stone-carving nor sculpting”, is to shorten the duration and process of the natural stone formation. A process of the deposition of stone, soil, sand and minerals is done in the ceramic studio instead to achieve the desired outcome in a shorter time. It means that those pieces of clay which have been formed by the potter’s hands are “to be petrified”.
Literally, the word “Knot” has various meanings. For example, it denotes a treated form by shifting through the insertion and this can be viewed as a mentality complex from the past situations which remains unsolved and unsurpassed affecting current attitudes and way of life. On the other hand, it connotes obligations and attachments that one awaits letting go. The mentioned analogy has brought the common characteristic of restraining or knot tying to light. Nevertheless, the elasticity of clay through the formation of knots has time restrained, for it soon will reach dryness and hardness due to air exposure. Extruded clay is twirled along the basic knots. For example, the Slip Knot is easily untwinded by a twitch. These petrified clay knots turn into stone, as if they were cursed; to put it simply, no one will never ever undo or untie them. Being overwhelmed with anxiety encountering those petrified knots, since it has only two alternatives: to leave these knots the way they are or smash them up for a change. Just like being pushed over the edge as there are just unwanted choices offered. Here, emphasis and juxtaposition given that “unwinding seems to be easy, yet it’s not so”. When reaching the dead end, turning back to the way it used to be is not possible.
Time as well as mountains always prevail over human beings, the cycle of change on these works start from clay-forming-firing, then “petrified” before turning into a permanent state. The transformation path is an on-going process, the continuances of those demolished rocks being broken into bits and pieces and gradually decayed with layers of organic components. Subsequently, the decomposition turns into soil. (a multi-million-year level as a formation of rock)
Our life is too short to witness such long process considered an unwavering phenomenon;
and this results in the triumph of time and mountains over human’s lifespan.