Ruth Duckworth and Grayson Perry approach clay as a material for creative expression from different perspectives that are firmly located within their individual subjectivities, temporalities, spatial practices and in the wider cultural and socio-political contexts in which their works and methodologies are situated. In this essay Duckworth and Perry bear the burden of representation of being female and male, respectively, and in this respect their artworks reflect their individual responses to gender distinctions. Duckworth explores issues of sex and gender somewhat obliquely by comparison to Perry who takes a strident approach to what he perceives as a form of discrimination against men through their cultural representation as a result of British society’s expectations of masculinity. Perry expresses concepts of gender distinction and transformation through his embrace of transvestism as a way of life combined with heterosexual marriage, and in his work, writings and broadcasts in the media. Duckworth is largely silent and leads a more self-contained private life so that understanding her response to gender can only be a matter of interpretation from her ceramic practice. The juxtaposition of these two artists provides an opportunity to consider how they each address gender through their work. This comparison also reveals some of the ways that the application of social and cultural interpretations of and responses to sex and gender contributes to a perception of Duckworth and Perry as sharing a degree of outsider status. Neither can be said to be purely an outsider artist yet their use of clay as a means of artistic expression inevitably leads to an association with the divisions and hierarchies within the art world involving art/craft and nature/culture binaries that are intimately connected to sex and gender debates alongside a consideration of primitivism, modernity and post-modernity. These debates have relevance for a discussion of ceramic craft practice in contemporary Hong Kong and this dissertation draws attention to some of the issues facing the author who is also a practicing ceramic artist. The main focus of this essay is to reflect on the work, and to a lesser extent the lives, of Duckworth and Perry and more briefly Asger Jorn and Isamu Noguchi, whilst drawing some comparisons to the life of a practicing artist in Hong Kong who also works with clay, is female and originates from a different place from the one in which she currently lives and works. / published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Covering the topics of my conceptual interests overlapping with the production of several bodies of work over the three years of my academic curriculum, this report addresses how my theoretical ideas and commitment to materials have shaped and informed my work. The work produced at my time in the Studio Arts Program at the University of Texas at Austin has indeed come full circle, with subjects and themes growing out of and eventually returning to some of the first work that I produced here. This work discussed is organized in a non-chronological order to expose similarities in approach over the course of time. Coming into the program I wanted to focus on developing the content in my work. Reshaping the way I thought and approached sculpture, I have adapted my previous investment in materials and incorporated my greater interests in the human condition as expressed through the cultural relics of society. / text

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I have always been at once fascinated and disquieted by the power of history to shape identity. As a Canadian raised on the Prairies, and a transplanted Chilean immigrant who has a combination of indigenous South American and European heritage, my ethnicity has made seeing only one side of any historical event a near impossibility. How does a person with a multi-faceted ethnic identity interpret the colonization of the Americas? From the view of the indigenous part of me, who mourns the millions lost, or of the European parts of me seeking a chance at a better life? Am I the slave or the slave owner, heathen or saint, explorer or exile, conqueror or conquered? Because of this dichotomy of viewpoints, my explorations of the effects of history, particularly the effects of cultural colonization on personal identity, have become one of the primary motivations for the sculptures that I create.

This creative project has produced a marketable sculpture for a real situation. After showing a portfolio of ideas to several client contacts, a monetary agreement was made with the Board of Directors of the Indiana Football Hall of Fame in Richmond, Indiana. The sculpture for the outside of the building was to exemplify the most common viewpoint of football. The finished welded steel sculpture showed a quarterback in position to pass the ball while at the same time about to be tackled by another player.

This creative project has researched the sculpture of David Smith, Anthony Caro, Carl Andre, Robert Morris, Donald Judd, Sol Lewitt and Kenneth Snelson. Emphasis has been on the use of the right angle – not only in sculptural forms but also in the construction of our physical world. Elements of Cubistic constructed sculpture and the more contemporary movement of primary structure are discussed.A detailed description of the construction of a welded tubular metal sculpture is presented. Influences from the area of the primary structure movement and some of the above sculptors have been utilized in this project.

I have always been at once fascinated and disquieted by the power of history to shape identity. As a Canadian raised on the Prairies, and a transplanted Chilean immigrant who has a combination of indigenous South American and European heritage, my ethnicity has made seeing only one side of any historical event a near impossibility. How does a person with a multi-faceted ethnic identity interpret the colonization of the Americas? From the view of the indigenous part of me, who mourns the millions lost, or of the European parts of me seeking a chance at a better life? Am I the slave or the slave owner, heathen or saint, explorer or exile, conqueror or conquered? Because of this dichotomy of viewpoints, my explorations of the effects of history, particularly the effects of cultural colonization on personal identity, have become one of the primary motivations for the sculptures that I create.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: l. [374]-379.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1993. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 17).