Kaisa Lindfors has been journaling all her adult life and in her latest body of work the Revelstoke-based ceramic artist is relocating some of her drawings and inscriptions from paper to pottery.
Lindfors has been the artist-in-residence at Nanaimo Ceramic Arts Studio and Gallery since September and on Dec. 3 she unveils her new collection, How to Feel Full: An Exploration of Drawing and Journaling on Clay in an online artist talk. Her pieces will remain on display until Dec. 17. This is the first time she is showing her work in Nanaimo.
Lindfors said journaling is an important way for her to process what she’s going through in the present while leaving something to look back on in the future.
“I always write,” she said. “Especially in a sketchbook I’m often writing on top of my drawings as just a way to think about it and also to remember. They’re kind of about memory as well and deciphering memory in a way that’s maybe different than a photo and more real than a photo for me.”
In How to Feel Full, Lindfors has decorated her ceramic items with painted and drawn images and phrases picked out of her journals that she still finds meaningful and relevant.
“My journaling practice is both a visual thing and a written thing, so I’m combining some of my written work and my drawing onto these vases and bowls,” she explained. “It’s a way to solidify my journalling practice onto a 3-D form and make it more real, I guess.”
Some of the images depict a narrative scene, while others are more abstract. Her inscriptions touch on issues like her concerns about climate change, her relationships to different people and places and various experiences she’s had. Lindfors said these are things she’s normally kept to herself.
“Clay has just become a really dominant medium for me and I think that there’s an interesting relationship between my journalling practice, which is a very private thing, and then making it more tangible and showing it to other people,” she said.
Lindfors said the title of the exhibit refers both to her ceramic pieces as vessels that can be filled literally as well as the search for personal fulfillment.
“How to Feel Full is like searching for fullness in life, whatever that means,” she said. “Through my journaling, through these drawings, through cups that make people laugh or whatever.”
WHAT’S ON … Kaisa Lindfors presents How to Feel Full: An Exploration of Drawing and Journaling on Clay at Nanaimo Ceramic Arts Studio and Gallery, 140 Wallace St., until Dec. 17. Click here for more information.
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