#A1 2025

Porcelain Na Farraige (Of the Sea) Wall Sculpture 2025

Can also be displayed as a free standing Sculpture

Dimensions: approx.

Centimeters: H 9 cm x W 21 cm

Na Farraige is Irish for “Of the Sea”.

For this design and for my research on how best to create it I combined two marvels of nature and both made of calcium carbonate; the shell of a sea urchin and stalagmites and stalactites that are found in caves deep beneath our feet.

The stalagmites and stalactites were key in resolving the dilemma of how to create spikes that truly looked organic. To create each spike I build up layers of a porcelain slip, each time allowing the sediment in the clay to settle and the water to evaporate, then when reaching leather hard I repeat the process again and again. A time consuming process so one needs to take a meditative approach. Usually each spike takes 4 layers (in some cases more) and there are 424 spikes on this piece, which is 1,696 touches just to finish the spikes alone but this seems very little when measured beside the stalagmites and stalactites growing at 1 cm every 100 years.