{"id":4186,"date":"2022-01-24T15:28:33","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T20:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/?p=4186"},"modified":"2022-01-24T15:28:33","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T20:28:33","slug":"questions-and-answers-interview-with-e-saffronia-downing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/2022\/01\/24\/questions-and-answers-interview-with-e-saffronia-downing\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions and Answers: Interview with E. Saffronia Downing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yan Xuan, the Colby Museum\u2019s Curatorial Intern for the 2021\u20132022 academic year, interviews artist E. Saffronia Downing, Lunder Institute for American Art Resident Fellow. <\/em><\/p>\n

     1. Clay appears in your work both as a sole material and as a component in mixed-media installations. What is the significance of clay in your work? <\/em><\/p>\n

I love working with clay because of its origins in the earth. Clay is composed of tiny bits of eroded rock. People have been making things from this earth material for thousands of years. Wild clay is a site-specific medium that corresponds with deep histories of place. I forage clay to unearth stories in the sediment. <\/p>\n

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Downing in her studio at the Greene Block, Waterville, ME<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a graduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I experimented with the clay I found around my neighborhood. Chicago clay is full of heavy metals. Sometimes these metals are geologic, like iron formed from residues of rock. Other times, the metals speak of human activity\u2013lead leached into the soil from pipes and paint. Through Chicago clay, I dug into the entwined histories of industry and earth processes to understand the human impact on geology underfoot. <\/p>\n

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Downing working with wild clay in Michigan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Recently, I\u2019ve been making work centered around the Presumpscot Formation\u2013a vein of blue-gray clay that runs through the midcoast region. Pottery made from this clay is called redware because of the ruddy hue of the fired ceramic. Foraging local clay has been a way to connect with the landscape as I locate myself in central Maine. <\/p>\n

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E. Saffronia Downing, Clay in Maine: A Timeline<\/em>, 2021<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

     2. Landscape changes over place and time. How does the natural history of a site influence your practice? <\/em><\/p>\n

I spend a lot of time studying entanglements between natural history and human activity. Some of this research takes place in archives, but often I research through observation. While I\u2019m walking, I look for things in the landscape: Are there traces of industry in this topography? Are the floras indigenous to the area or are these plants from away? Do the street names reflect histories of land practices, place names, or people? My observations lead to pathways of inquiry that guide my site-specific projects. <\/p>\n

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E. Saffronia Downing, Field Dug Over<\/em>, 2021. Stoneware, porcelain, glaze, glass, stones, soil, ceramic decal, earthenware foraged from Chicago, Sheffield, and Knoxville<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

     3. In your videos documenting visits to sites of earthly removal, you included sounds of ceramics touching and birds singing. How do these acoustic aspects influence your traveling experience? <\/em><\/p>\n

The video series Sites of Earthly Removal<\/em><\/a> grew from the early days of the pandemic. Having lost access to my studio, materials, and tools, I began shooting videos on my phone while I walked around my neighborhood. The videos became a way to metabolize place-based research in a digital social-distant context. I created four short works in this series\u2013\u201cThornton Quarry,\u201d \u201cBrick-Town Mall,\u201d \u201cPalmisano Park,\u201d and \u201cWolf Road Prairie.\u201d Each video explored a local site of material extraction.<\/p>\n\n\t

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