Stela, Dust to Dust
Stela, Rebecca Appleby, Ceramic Sculpture
In the Stela series Appleby is thinking about how the clay holds memories. She sees the making process as a transfer of energy from the body into the artwork. The making process mirrors the concept of the work that energy and life force is transferred and absorbed into the fabric of the buildings that we occupy. A building is a vessel, made from multiple building blocks, that holds life within its walls.
This concept references the ancient Egyptians who used plaster to make death masks, believing that the spirit of the person who died would remain in the cast.
Appleby also reflects on Masaru Emoto’s Experiments on Water.
Masaru is a Japanese man who started freezing water in 1994 and taking photographs of the resultant crystals. He would take pictures of water normally, and then again after a prayer was said over it. He tested water by playing different kids of music to it. Classical music produced well-shaped crystals but heavy metal songs produced misshapen, irregular crystals. He taped positive and negative words on the jars of water. Words like “love” and “gratitude” produced beautiful, perfect crystals, but negative words produced no crystals or misshapen ones. He also put pictures on the jars. He used pictures of mountains and nature then pictures of negative things.
It’s important to note that 70% of our bodies consists of water, so his experiments are interesting. It demonstrates that thoughts/words/images have an effect on the state of the water molecules and on physical matter, an idea also espoused by author Gregg Braden.
Through his research, it was revealed that water not only collects information but is also sensitive to feelings and consciousness and suggests that thoughts and intentions produce an energy that affects matter, either for good or bad.’
The new Stela sculpture explores the concept of life cycles, the title ‘Dust to Dust’ attempts on a philosophical level to illustrate a universal truth, everything is temporary. Our existence, despite all its complexities, ambitions, and emotions, eventually simplifies down to the fact that we are part of the Earth's fabric. The time we have is ours to fill with experiences, memories, relationships, and stories. But at the end of it all, our physical form blends back into the star stuff we originally hailed from.
Stela represents a form that is neither matter, nor material. The ‘matter’ that buildings are made from, the original raw clay, turns into ‘material’- a brick for functional use. The building, made from bricks itself has a lifespan, then is demolished when that comes to an end. The demolished bricks are broken down into aggregate to be returned to the earth ready for new beginnings.
