Matter is a Centre of Dreaming: 8th Israeli Ceramics Biennale

We all dream sometimes about doing a totally outrageous thing, something that would take us beyond what we know, out of our comfort zone. In my case it was the dream of seeing what would happen if I massively blew up my way of working in the studio, if I worked with an immense block of clay that would demand inventiveness in terms of tools and would also turn my whole body into a tool. I wanted to know what a big mass of clay feels like, what it allows me to do, and where the limits would be.

Often you need the right occasion to trigger putting a dream into action; for me this came with. I submitted a proposal, it was accepted by the curator, and then I got real scared: it’s one thing to dream and another to be put on the spot to fulfill your dream. What I was about to do didn’t allow for any pre-run, any testing of the idea; either it would succeed or it wouldn’t. It would be an expensive one-time shot and might prove to be way beyond my physical abilities. I also knew that it was now or never: I’m 65, I told myself, time is running out for such extravaganzas. Maybe it would have been more fitting to try this twenty years ago, but then twenty years ago I hadn’t developed professionally to this point.