TIME is of the essence if people want to see a fleeting artwork commissioned by The Bowes Museum as it celebrates the 200th anniversary of its co-founder Josephine Bowes.
Ceramicist Phoebe Cummings spent much of last week completing her sculpture Time Line on site at the museum, but it is destined to return to a lump of clay at the end of the exhibition, From Joséphine Bowes: Trendsetters and Trailblazers.
The sculptor is renowned internationally for transforming clay into intricate works in the Rococo and Baroque art deco styles and has had works displayed across the world, including America, Europe and Asia.
Her latest work will be suspended over a plinth that forms part of the Bowes collection and also has art deco style features.
Ms Cumming said: “I wanted, in a way, for the new work to speak to the piece but without it physically touching and being displayed on it, so there is some sort of conversation with the plinth
“It is kind of a shared language, but it takes a slightly different direction. Often these elements feed into the work. I’m always thinking about time, so the duration of the process of making, and also the duration of which objects exist, and kind of how they change with time, or how their meaning changes over time.”
The artist has been working with raw clay for about two decades. She happened on the recycling aspect of her art purely for economic reasons.
She said: “I couldn’t afford a studio or a kiln, so it was a way of making what I wanted to and working this way I could always recycle the material.
“I think the thing that is constant is the raw material and this interesting time, almost the object’s existence is a sort of performance in the way they’re durational, and often botanical.”
Part of the commissioned work was completed in the ceramicist’s studio, but the bulk of it was completed in the museum’s gallery. The finished product took about a week to complete.
It will be returned to a shapeless lump when the exhibition closes at the end of June.
