Code Switching (Circle) 2017
The tension held by Myre’s ceramic forms is present in a large body of work produced by the artist from 2018 onwards, titled Code-Switching. During an artist residency in London, the artist walked along the River Thames at low tide, climbing down steps to the water’s edge from St. Paul’s Cathedral. Protruding from the river mud, the ceramic beads she was able to search for and collect, on closer inspection, felt familiar to the shaped shells used to weave wampum. Bringing them back in a small box to her studio in Canada, the artist returned to these mudlarked finds a few years later. Following research, Myre discovered that the beads were not in fact beads, but shards of clay tobacco pipes, discarded primarily by sailors and those working on the docks of the Thames, when central London looked very different. Contact between Europe and the Indigenous peoples brought traders into contact with tobacco and, quickly thereafter, the production of clay pipes began across Britain – from London to Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Bristol – with long stems pre-stuffed with tobacco meeting a decorative bowl. The pipes were considered disposable and, in the intervening centuries, these discarded remains evolved into what the artist calls "archaeological refuse."
Found when mudlarking along the Thames, these shards are easily mistaken for small bones. They appear fragile and skeletal, yet are also resilient, having been washed along the riverbed for hundreds of years. They are precious in the sense of historical value, yet exist in the river in some quantity. Seen as decorative despite their functional purpose, they are both plain and full of patina, with marks and scuffs reflecting their use and existence.
Myre has used shards directly by weaving them into sculptural forms, but has primarily cast from them, with basket, rope and net-like forms emerging as a result. The artist has also worked with these items through this photographic series. Myre’s photography of the pipe remnants is not what it seems at first sight: the prints were taken not with a camera, but with a high-resolution scanner, whose lamp and sensor move back and forth to capture the object’s data through reflections. It may seem a small differentiation, yet this reveals a different kind of looking: the object is surveyed rather than captured straight on, and the foreground is drawn into sharp focus whilst background precision is lost.
Code Switching (Circle) 2017
The tension held by Myre’s ceramic forms is present in a large body of work produced by the artist from 2018 onwards, titled Code-Switching. During an artist residency in London, the artist walked along the River Thames at low tide, climbing down steps to the water’s edge from St. Paul’s Cathedral. Protruding from the river mud, the ceramic beads she was able to search for and collect, on closer inspection, felt familiar to the shaped shells used to weave wampum. Bringing them back in a small box to her studio in Canada, the artist returned to these mudlarked finds a few years later. Following research, Myre discovered that the beads were not in fact beads, but shards of clay tobacco pipes, discarded primarily by sailors and those working on the docks of the Thames, when central London looked very different. Contact between Europe and the Indigenous peoples brought traders into contact with tobacco and, quickly thereafter, the production of clay pipes began across Britain – from London to Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Bristol – with long stems pre-stuffed with tobacco meeting a decorative bowl. The pipes were considered disposable and, in the intervening centuries, these discarded remains evolved into what the artist calls "archaeological refuse."
Found when mudlarking along the Thames, these shards are easily mistaken for small bones. They appear fragile and skeletal, yet are also resilient, having been washed along the riverbed for hundreds of years. They are precious in the sense of historical value, yet exist in the river in some quantity. Seen as decorative despite their functional purpose, they are both plain and full of patina, with marks and scuffs reflecting their use and existence.
Myre has used shards directly by weaving them into sculptural forms, but has primarily cast from them, with basket, rope and net-like forms emerging as a result. The artist has also worked with these items through this photographic series. Myre’s photography of the pipe remnants is not what it seems at first sight: the prints were taken not with a camera, but with a high-resolution scanner, whose lamp and sensor move back and forth to capture the object’s data through reflections. It may seem a small differentiation, yet this reveals a different kind of looking: the object is surveyed rather than captured straight on, and the foreground is drawn into sharp focus whilst background precision is lost.