Ex-voto

Anne-Marie Dehon

A few months ago, I suddenly understood that my craft was a votive practice: a wishfull practice for a world without technology. An ex-voto is an object that we offer to the divinity to thank the god for a gift or to prevent something from happening in the future. In a way, my entire ceramic work is an ex-voto that carry the wish of a world with much less technology. By defining it as an ex-voto I am questioning my practice: to make a wish does not mean that it will happen, neither that it has any impact on the reality. Is that not when the situation is desperate that we refer to a divinity? Is making ceramics a desperate whisper to protect an idealized nature? What is the meaning today to idealize nature while we destroy it by our way of life? This reflects on my own practice of craft regarding to the destruction of nature by technology. The ceramic objects are the votive object, the wish carried by the craft. The picture represents the nature as it is (cf. Trolhättan project) or as we desire it to be (cf. Fragonard project). The project as a whole question the idealization of nature, the idealization of craft and his meaning today in a context of global warming.

Technical explaination:

After the colors were mixed, I painted the wet sculpted ex-votos. Afterwards they have been fired at high temperature(1200 degrees).

Ceramic color scheme

Colors of Fragonard

Colored Ex-votos

Technical explaination:

The ceramic firing process is changing the colors of the raw material. When one is mixing it, one can never expect that the end result will be the same than the original observed color. That's why I need a ceramic scheme that is already fired. Each small piece is marked with the recipe of the pigments required for making this color.

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