There is a particular quality of silence in an empty room, especially a family home when the door slams loudly and voices dissipate along the street. It is as if the air exhales, released from its constant disruption, constant churning by children running up the stairs and through doorways. For a moment, it is given reprieve to settle into the spaces left behind.
Material Presence 2018
May 2019
Ceramics Art and Perception: article 'Pacing the Perimeter'
May 2019
Ceramics Art and Perception: article 'Pacing the Perimeter'
Dr Natasha Mayo is a practitioner, researcher and since 2004 senior lecturer ceramics at Cardiff School of Art and Design. Her practice is fuelled by an interest in practices that move between social, technical as well as creative ways of working. Teaching within an interdisciplinary framework she calls upon drawing, poetry, sensory anthropology, and relational aesthetics alongside more traditional approaches to clay – to test the boundaries and preconceptions of the discipline and to identify more wholistic generative approaches to creativity.
She is a fellow of HEA, member of the Royal Anthropology Institute, the Folklore Society, trained in Oral History techniques and a Haumea eco-literacy associate. Project partners have included the Refugee Council, National Museum Wales, Artworks Cymru, Center of Ceramics, York Museum, The Big Draw, Craft Council and most recently Thinking Through Drawing (TtD).
In ceramics she has achieved national and international acclaim with work in private collections in USA, Korea, Japan, Belgium and France. Her recent work revisits the focus of ‘thinking through the skin’' on the figure, an experimentation with the ceramic surface to convey a sense of knowledge as it travels through the body. A practice in clay, that echoes an ongoing interest with the practice of 'in Conversation' and 'Small Talk' also evident in recent drawing, participatory work and writing.
She has contributed over 40 articles for journals such as: The Royal Anthropology Journal, Intellect Books, Ceramics Art and Perception, Kerameiki Techni, Ceramic Review, Interpreting Ceramics, CCQ, Artist newsletter (AN).
Account of her practice can be found in the following publications:
Vincent, P, (2004) Figurative Ceramics Edition, Ceramics and Society
Cane, K, (2012) Making and Drawing, pub. Bloomsbury
Mayo, N, (2024) Capturing Small Stories From the Lake at the MAA/Ground Resdency, issue 9.1 Drawing Research, Theory, Practice.
Mayo, N, (2024) The Irreducible Forces of Home: Ensemble Practices of Parent/Artists During COVID 19, in Creativity in a Time of Covid-19, pub. Royal Anthropology Society and Folklore Institute