We-Ha-Neck! (A harvest supper)
15 Oct – 24 Dec 2021
The Burton Art gallery and Museum, Bideford, Devon
We-Ha-Neck! (A harvest supper), 2021, installation view of solo exhibition at The Burton in Bideford, including stools, lidded jars, plates, jugs a teapot, a piece of music and risograph-printed posters.
The exhibition presents a new body of ceramics, which explores the idea of an intimate harvest celebration, with pottery stools, plates and jugs staged around a triangular table. At the core of the installation is Bayliss’ take on the traditional harvest jug – a type of jug made in North Devon for serving drinks during rural celebrations.
The ceramic stools that form part of the piece are based on designs by Michael Cardew, an English potter who learned his craft in North Devon and who began designing stools in Nigeria in the 1960s. Bayliss’ interest in Cardew extends to the extraordinary story of his personal life in Africa and his queer sexuality. Making the stools has enabled Bayliss to think about both Cardew’s colonial power and the huge influence African art had on his pottery, raising questions of how to acknowledge the trickle-down of black influences with sensitivity and cultural respect.
The pink triangular plinth which stages the work, is a reference to Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party. Chicago was an important icon of 1970s feminist art, and The Dinner Party comprises a massive ceremonial banquet arranged on a triangular table with place settings commemorating important women from history. The pink equilateral triangle also acknowledges the symbol used by Nazi’s to denote homosexual men in concentration camps, and it has since been reclaimed by LGBTQ+ communities as a positive symbol of identity.
The dance track accompanying the ceramic installation uses found samples from ‘Crying the Neck’ festivities, which have traditionally taken place at harvest time around Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. As the last clump of wheat is cut and held in the air, the gathered crowd shout “What-ave-ee?”, and the harvester replies "A neck! A neck! A neck!" There’s a parallel here between the ‘neck’ of wheat and the neck of a jug, providing a link back to the harvest jug and the initial inspiration behind this new body of work.
All of the ceramics are thrown on the potters’ wheel from terracotta, decorated with coloured slips, brushed oxides and clear glazes, and fired once at high earthenware temperature.
In the central glass cabinet are two ceramic stools by Michael Cardew kindly loaned from Aberystwyth University ceramics collection, and on the back wall is the RJ Lloyd collection of historic slipware, housed at The Burton.
We-Ha-Neck!, music, 3:25, featuring recordings from the Crying the Neck celebration, organised by St Ives Old Cornwall Society
