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A piece of paper, a canvas or any flat surface is two-dimensional and without any implication of spatial dimensionality. Yet, throughout much of our history, effort has been focused on ways of depicting an illusion of three-dimensional reality on a more or less flat surface. With each time period, there were ideas in the air. Sometimes, it was religion that first explained ideas; or artists who intuited them; or scientists who analyzed and systematized. Through time, representation changed.

Earliest attempts utilized layering, placing one form in front of another, the one on top closest to the viewer. Hierarchical representation used scale to suggest importance: smaller was less significant. Eventually, more distant object were observed to be smaller than were those closer to the viewer. Think about the mountain scenes of China and of the religious paintings of the Middle Ages.

In the Renaissance, a greater focus on observation and analysis led to systemization and to the laws of perspective. Think about railroad tracks dwindling to a single point, initially frontal and then from above or below. This was a somewhat static world; the Baroque made perspective more dynamic by shifting it to the diagonal. Think about Rubens’ Christ Descending From The Cross. The Rococo meandered through space and Neoclassicism returned to layering and aligning forms in a taut severely classical space.

As science explored the nature of light, the focus shifted to surface, rather than form in a rigid and contrived space. The portrayal of deep space was more about concept that observable reality and with that change, space slowly flattened. Think about Manet, whose figures stand informally in a shallower space, and then of Monet, whose structures dissolve in pastiche of small daubs of paint.

The Impressionist’s visual world was literally coming apart. How could they pull their world together? Cezanne analyzed form into simple facets and rebuilt a world of solidity and cubes; Seurat organized the tiny dots of paint, flattening them into tight graphic arrangements of shapes that kept their reference to reality. Together, they led the way to further flattening and ironically, Cezanne’s focus on structure led to its demise.

Influenced by Cezanne’s proto-cubism, Picasso and Braque deconstructed form; they arbitrarily, synthetically, put it back together, layering to create an almost flat pictorial space in which the implication of space was almost on a molecular level.

Later, Hans Hoffmann brought the implication of movement into this constricted space by building on the observation that warm and intense colors appear to come forward and cool and dull ones retreat. He layered colored forms to create spatial possibilities that changed in context, while minutely pushing and pulling forward or backwards.

The world of classical physics is long gone now and thanks to modern physics, with its concepts of relativity, simultaneity, alternate realities, and plastic space, our concepts about how to fill or represent pictorial space have changed.

We can layer in front and behind an implied picture plane, inside the picture space. We can make forms that are ambiguously part of one structure and then part of another. We can fill a space that is all illusion or, to any extent we wish, extend it into the real world with actual forms attached to the surface. The grafting of the real to the unreal is a metaphor that speaks loudly of the world in all its current confusion and possibility.

We can even move the pictorial space into real space with installation art, its logical progenitor being set design. And the reference can be anything from an intimate space to one on a vastly grander scale. Art makes gods of all of us, however briefly and even a universe that bends and folds in on itself can become inspiration for our art.

Once bisque fired, ceramic form is petrified. It is only then when many potters first think about adding color to form. Often, they simply coat the pot with a partial or blanket covering of a glaze, relying on the form’s edges to break through and provide definition and color contrast, sometimes adding a second lgaze layer that interacts with the first. Or, they decorate with underglazes and then clear glaze. Some make sketches and small tests to explore ways of integrating color, form and surface. None of this supports the discovery of many new possibilities as does simultaneously working with form, color and texture while the clay is leather hard and malleable.

Start with ¼”-3/8” leather hard clay slabs or thrown forms. Use Amaco’s Velvets for a large, intermixable, almost “what you see is what you get” palette, that darkens and intensifies under clear glaze; test for glaze-Velvet compatibility. Some Velvets are quite translucent, unless applied in three layers and dried between them. Make them more transparent without a loss of thickness by using water-based silkscreen extender. You can use stained slips and engobes but their color will not be as predictable and must be tested.

Apply these “paints” with airbrush, sponge, brush, or foam roller. Opaque colors cover underlying color; translucent colors do not. You can generate interesting and complex imagery with layered colors, incising, masking, latex resist, printing and impressing.

Use a heat gun at its highest setting to firm and dry just the Velvet application but not the entire thickness of the clay after each application. This insures that bisque stamps and other tools will not stick to the clay and that the color will not be offset onto the roller. The goal is to leave the interior pliable. If the clay gets too inflexible, spray it with a fine mist of water, cover briefly, and it will become flexible again.

After laying down a first layer or combination of colors and images, create relief by impressing into the clay, thoughtful of the relationship of those marks to the form. Make hard stamps of bisqued clay, carved plaster or wood, metal, rubber, plastic, Photopoly; plant forms; almost anything! Use numerical and alphabet stamps or write into clay with a rounded needle tool for decorative and expressive possibilities.

Create relief, not just by impressing into clay but by removing it with a variety of loop or lino-cutting tools, incising down to the clay body to create a woodcut or intaglio look, which can be “inked” after bisque firing with another color, stain or glaze. Alter and distort texture or imagery by flattening the clay and impressing into it again; by throwing and pulling it; or by expanding it from within or underneath. Then, color the top surface differently than the first, now the bottom layer.

We can also create relief by adding clay pieces to the clay’s surface and by slip trailing directly onto a slab or a pot’s surface. You can also trail or print slips onto a plaster slab and then cover them with your clay body slip to create leather hard “veneer pieces” that can be lifted and used for “clay collage.” Coated on their back with thick clay body slip, they can be attached to slabs or thrown forms using wallpaper rollers or soft rubber brayers. Cover with soft clear plastic sheeting and roll from the center or from one side to the other to avoid trapping air bubbles. Always support the wall of a vertical or thrown form from underneath.

These slabs can be worked on both sides and shaped in sling molds as well as in or on regular and irregularly-shaped humps and slumps as well as on Styrofoam, ceramic forms, wood, plastic foam, rocks, crushed paper or aluminum foil, stuffing, old pillows, stockings filled with Perlite or Vermiculite, plant forms; whatever! Cover these forms first with very thin plastic sheeting and avoid undercuts so that the slab can be easily removed; wet newspaper also works but can get shredded with aggressive work.

Continue to use the Velvets. Alter form and surface to emphasize the spatial dialogue you have begun to create, confirming or denying particular concrete relationships and bringing new spatial configurations into existence; confirm your expressive intentions. Simpler forms are easier to handle; get more complex and bigger as you become more adept. Make composite forms and explore the spaces between them by making models with brown wrapping paper and masking tape, stencil paper or thin roofing felt to create eccentric shaped templates. Be sure, after cutting out these clay parts, to connect clay edges by slipping and scoring. This is offered to inspire you. Share with us the results of your explorations with color, form and surface!