What's Your Inspiration?
WANAREE TANNER
Wanaree Tanner has burst onto the Metal Clay scene with a massive bang! Her work is instantly recognisable and hard to forget. The piece which she has chosen to share with us is Anam Cara which won the Presidential Prize at the recent Art Clay World 2011 North American Design Competition. A well-deserved accolade, I am sure you will all agree.
What's interesting about Wanaree's work, apart from the obvious skill and talent she shows when constructing such an intricate piece, is that there is a depth of meaning to each item she makes. Anam Cara, Wanaree tells us means spiritual friend and she believes a true spiritual friend is someone who will guide us past all the beauty and distraction of our many layers to the truth that resides within.
So what are the layers and the meanings to each? Wanaree tells us in her own words here;
"Generally I believe everybody is at least three people, the person the world sees, the person our loved ones see, and our true self. Sometimes I think we tend to close ourselves off from the outside world, work very hard to decorate our outer selves, and hope that that's all people will see us for and yet hate it when they do. To me it's the deepest conflict of self, this desire to have the world embrace who we truly are, yet afraid of the vulnerability this position puts us in.
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The beautiful Anam Cara crafted from copper and silver metal clay and fire agate
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The thistles, griffons, hounds and interlace knots are worked on the outside of the vessel. Griffons and hounds are mythological beasts associated with protection and guardianship; thistles are thorny hardiness surrounding a beautiful bloom. All of this is meant to communicate the complexity of the armor we build around our true self.
On the top of the vessel is my "Luck and Love" knot, this has been pierced to allow light to shine through because often it seems it is only with a little luck that we allow that light of love to be cast through our defenses.
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With the doors open you can see the fire agate collected and cut by Gordon Eslava
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The doors open and we can begin to see the beauty of the stone that lies within. We make ourselves a little more vulnerable to the world, but still remain relatively comfortable within our protective shell. You can see the "Luck and Love" knot casting itself upon the stone. I like to think this is akin to the idea that the love we feel from the outside is actually just a reflection of the love that resides within us, merely a shadow dance pointing to the true source.
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The fire agate pendant is shown here beside the container
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The pendant itself is us when we love one another. We always keep a little hidden, but for the most part leave ourselves exposed. The clasp on the stone's cradle is worked with my "Two Hearts Joined" knot, when we surrender ourselves completely to another, the line between "I" and the other blurs. I believe this is the door to the soul, what can be called our Buddha nature, or that space before a thought arises.
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The fire agate - revealed.
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The full beauty of the stone is only revealed when all of the exterior housing is abandoned. Although man has shaped it, it existed before our conception of it... natural, raw, and filled with the light that sparks every atom in the universe, beyond our comprehension but imbued in every aspect of us."
So, with all that going on in the conception of her piece, it is fortunate indeed that Wanaree has the skills and talent in her fingers to make her vision a reality. When asked where she gets her inspiration from, she tells us that she looks around the world for the stories and mythology which brings allegorical imagery to the fore. This allows her to tap into her subconscious creative self to explore and deliver the stories she wants her work to tell. We are certain this is only the beginning of Wanaree's storytelling and we are excited to see what comes next.
To view more of Wanaree's Artware, click here.
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