Jug-Skin Fence

Artwork

CreatorLucas, CherylNameJug-Skin FenceDate Made2009Medium DescriptionStonewareObject NumberLU254:1-49Dimensionsactual 900 mm x 5000 mmCredit LineGifted by the artistFurther informationThis work is rather unassuming, the wooden posts and wire fence naturally blending into the garden as though there for more practical purposes. Yet the unusual forms folded over the wire entice one to look closer and discover that the objects are glazed ceramics. The work was created by Lyttelton-based ceramicist, Cheryl Lucas, and kindly gifted by the artist in 2009.

As the title suggests, the work is an alteration on the practice of drying rabbit skins over farm fences – a memory of the artist from her childhood spent in the Central Otago high country. Instead of animal pelts, the artist deflates a series of jugs – vessels as common on a farm as finding rabbits.

As a parallel to rabbit skins, these jugs, once able to contain nourishment, are no longer capable of doing so yet in their changed state can still find other uses. The work ultimately speaks to reinvention and lifecycles: the skinned jug is an appeal for the making and using of ceramics as much as it is for the re-use of materials in an environmentally conscious world, while the land, ravaged by wild rabbits for their own nourishment, becomes the source of our own nourishment through what we hunt, gather, or forage to consume.
Artwork CopyrightAll rights reservedArt CollectionLincoln University Art Collection

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Jug-Skin Fence