About the Artist Wanying Liang: https://shop.wanyingliang.com/pages/about-the-artist
Creating a large-scale ceramic sculpture is a continuous dialogue between the material and the artist's original vision. From conceptualizing and sketching to building and firing, the journey is one of transformation, compromise, and the exploration of new paths.
In this studio journal entry, I want to pull back the curtain on the entire creation process of a recent sculpture titled "You Grow Up When I Sleep," taking it from a raw lump of clay to a completed, fired piece.
From Two Dimensions to Three
I always begin my work by sketching. Drawing the piece allows me to deeply understand the relationship between two-dimensional concepts and three-dimensional forms. It reveals the similar—and sometimes entirely different—sensations a form invokes when it is lifted off the paper and brought into physical space.
Material Selection and Building Techniques
For larger ceramic sculptures, material choice is paramount. While I love porcelain for my functional cups, I deliberately choose stoneware clay for my sculptural work.
-
Plasticity and Strength: Stoneware offers excellent plasticity and is significantly less prone to cracking under its own weight compared to porcelain.
-
Color and Temperature: Its natural color is lighter than traditional earthenware, providing a wonderful blank canvas for my glazes. I use a versatile stoneware body that can be fired anywhere from Cone 4 to Cone 10, adapting perfectly to different firing conditions.
My primary construction method is a combination of slab building and coil building. It is a flexible, highly controllable technique that does not rely on heavy equipment. While it is beginner-friendly, it remains the beloved foundational method for many experienced ceramic artists.
The Hidden Architecture: Internal Support Structures
When building large ceramic pieces, you must carefully engineer the internal support system. Without it, there is a high risk of catastrophic collapse or deformation during the wet building stages and the firing process.
For this piece, I designed an internal support system resembling a honeycomb. While these structural walls will be completely invisible once the piece is closed, they are arguably the most important part of the sculpture.
-
Weight Reduction: I carefully cut holes into these internal clay walls. This drastically reduces the overall weight and the amount of clay used.
-
Drying Speed: The negative space allows air to circulate internally, speeding up the drying process and ensuring the moisture leaves the piece evenly.
-
Firing Resilience: A well-engineered internal structure allows the piece to withstand the intense thermal stress of the kiln, greatly increasing the overall success rate of the firing.
Pacing the Moisture and Refining Form
Moisture management dictates the pace of the entire studio. During dry seasons, I meticulously cover the work in plastic wrap when stepping away, or gently mist it with water to maintain a workable humidity. Too much moisture, however, will cause the walls to buckle.
To create the intricate exterior cutouts on this sculpture, I rely on a specific timing technique. If I try to cut the final, delicate shapes while the clay is too wet, the wall will collapse. If I wait until it is leather-hard, it becomes too difficult to cut through cleanly. My solution is to cut smaller, rough holes while the clay is wet to establish the negative space without compromising the structural integrity. Once the clay firms up slightly, I go back in to refine the finer silhouettes.
Modular Design: Managing Large Elements
"You Grow Up When I Sleep" features large, sweeping botanical leaves. If you have experience firing similar sprawling elements, you know that attaching them before firing makes it incredibly difficult for them to survive the kiln, and poses a massive risk during shipping and transportation.
To solve this, I designed the sculpture modularly. I sculpt and fire the large leaves entirely separately. I design specific connection points into the main body of the sculpture so the leaves can be safely attached after the final glaze firing.
Kiln Logistics and the Chaos of Glazing
Loading heavy, awkwardly shaped sculptures into a standard top-loading kiln can be nerve-wracking. To make this process safer for the work, my partner helps me completely disassemble the kiln rings, allowing us to place the sculpture cleanly onto the kiln shelf before carefully reassembling the kiln around it.
The final stage is the surface treatment. For this sculpture, I utilized a combination of pouring, brushing, and dipping glazes, adapting my application to the specific curves and textures of the form. Glazing requires a tremendous amount of patience and a high tolerance for chaos. It is a practice I am continually exploring, and the unpredictable nature of the melt is what makes the final reveal so beautiful.
Watch the complete 45-minute sculpting process on my YouTube channel: [Link to Video]
Explore Available Sculptures: http://shop.wanyingliang.com/collections/fine-art-sculptures