Myra Douglass is a interdisciplinary artist who creates intriguing sculptures, paintings and ceramics. Her love of science and the natural world are deeply ingrained in all the work she produces. Like a true scientist, she stays curious, experiments with rules, often breaking them to elicit new discoveries. And like a true artist she stays playful and always "revels in every painstaking step."
Myra Douglass' Artist Statement: I have always been interested in science: biological processes, anatomy, landscape, bodies of water, and so on. My work associates these things. I’m most satisfied when these notations are veiled, and each viewer might have a different correlation occur to them: the curves of a woman’s body, cellular organelles, and topographic maps may all be subliminally implicated in the curves of a single surface. The repetition of geometry we find in nature has become an inextricable part of my visual library. I use the visceral influence of salt, soda, and wood-firing to illuminate the exquisite course of the flame as it dances though the kiln and transforms the contents.
I bask gleefully in the repetition compulsory to producing a large series of related installation bits. The vast ocean of history that ceramics encompasses inspires and overwhelms me simultaneously. My love of the ceramic process is then complimented with the use of mixed media to give each work a depth and variation in surface that mimics our natural world. I will the work to come to life by instilling each individual component with its own character or role to play in the greater body of work. I revel in the alchemy of combining the mixed media components applying them like skins with flourishes of color, dustiness, or juiciness where applicable.
When I am in my studio I construct many objects at once, in series, and find this keeps me from overworking any piece in particular. I listen to music and occasionally podcasts or books if the procedure I’m carrying out isn’t too newly developed or complex. I try my best not to overthink the work. I want to be physically present: fully engaging in each brush stroke, each pull of a wall, or compression of an edge. If my studio practice is going well, I am committed to each motion and experience a loss of all self-consciousness about the process. These focused times in my studio are what compel me to keep making. I like to use a variety of commercially produced clay bodies, but find that I usually gravitate toward b-mix type and porcelain clays as the foundation of most of my works, adding accents of darker clays. I want the variation in attached clay bodies and brushed on slips to be highlighted by the atmospheric firings I use. The work must be durable to withstand a cone 12 wood fire and I take great pride in the reliable construction of my pieces.
See more of Myra's work at Small Space Fest: June 20th, 2016!
Myra Douglass Website: Here