About the Artist Wanying Liang: https://shop.wanyingliang.com/pages/about-the-artist
Building large-scale ceramic sculptures comes with a massive physical challenge: gravity. When working with wet clay, the weight of the material constantly works against you. If you attempt to build a tall, hollow form without engineering the inside, there is a high risk of catastrophic collapse or severe deformation during the drying and firing process.
For my large sculptural pieces, such as "You Grow Up When I Sleep", the secret to structural integrity lies entirely in the hidden architecture inside the clay. Here is how I build internal supports to ensure large hand-built sculptures survive the kiln.
The Honeycomb Support System
Rather than building a simple hollow shell, I build internal walls simultaneously with the exterior walls using stoneware clay. Stoneware is ideal for this because it offers excellent plasticity and is significantly less prone to cracking under its own weight compared to porcelain.
I design these internal supports to resemble a honeycomb structure. By building intersecting interior walls, the exterior walls have something to lean on, allowing me to build taller and faster without waiting for the bottom tiers to become completely leather-hard.
The Importance of Negative Space
If you simply build solid internal walls, you introduce two new problems: excessive weight and trapped moisture. To solve this, I heavily modify the internal supports as I build them.
-
Weight Reduction: Once an internal wall is secured, I use a hole-cutter or a sharp knife to remove large circular sections of the clay. This drastically reduces the overall weight of the sculpture, making it easier to lift into the top-loading kiln.
-
Airflow and Drying: The negative space created by these cutouts is crucial for drying. It allows air to circulate internally, ensuring that the moisture leaves the thickest parts of the sculpture at the same rate as the exterior walls. Uneven drying is the number one cause of structural cracking.
-
Thermal Shock Prevention: During the bisque firing, steam needs a clear path to escape. An open, honeycomb structure allows the intense thermal stress of the kiln to distribute evenly, preventing explosions and greatly increasing the success rate of the firing.
While these structural walls are completely invisible once the piece is closed and fully fired, they are the foundation that makes large-scale ceramic art possible.