Fear

Fear is an interesting thing. I tend to let my mind run away with me and small fears become larger than life. Fear of the unknown and the imagined can become all consuming. As a child I was scared of the dark. We always lived in big old spacious villas that creaked and made interesting noises and shadows at night. The dash from the bedroom door after turning off the light, to get to the bed before those imaginary creatures got me, was an intense experience. Last year I worked on a small series of ceramic faces mounted on old wooden light switch fittings from old villas. They were based on those creatures that I thought would come out of the nooks and crannies of the room in the dark. Over the last few months I have been working on larger faces on the same theme. They are dinner plate size. But here’s the interesting thing- I don’t find them scary in a bigger size. I can touch them, caress the different textures and explore their contours. These big faces are friends who I chatter away to in the studio. So why are the small faces scary and the large ones aren’t?