Folded Vase

Photos

About the artist

Rustam Engineer

If something is beautiful it is resonant. If it also possesses utility it can be more so. I love working in clay and the process of wood-firing. It is an exercise in recklessness, beauty and serendipity. For me line and strength of form is the thing I can contribute, the fire and ash and its generosity or caprice lends the rest. I am always looking for beauty; it is a mirror of The Real.

After working in the arts for many years, (I now work as a fine art printmaker) I saw a show of wood fired ceramics by a Japanese master. I was more drawn to these strange objects than anything I had ever seen. I resolved to make wood fired ceramics.

I like working in clay because it is forgiving and at the same time difficult. I work in a purely sculptural way, that is I do not throw, slab or coil pots, I prefer to take a block of clay, see the line emerging from it and remove what is not the form. I have only just begun and the forms that emerge are as much mine as personalities I am fond of and hope to revisit over and over.

I hope these objects give you pleasure. They have so much to give….

Wood Fired Ceramic Incense Burners.

These objects are incense burners. I was born and grew up in India and spent the best part of my adult life in relationship to a spiritual master. The function of incense in almost every form of sacramental worship and ritual is something that I have a deep love and sense of connection with. So, they are special to me and a form I constantly come back to. For me, they help invoke the sacred and are a marriage of sculptural form and true utility.

The burners are designed to use either stick incense, or solid aromatic incense or purifying herbs like sage. It is best to place rice or sand or ash in the base of the burner and place the incense on it.

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