Anvil (2010)
glazed ceramic, ceramic heating element

Anvil is a ceramic cast of a 76kg blacksmith’s anvil finished in a black glaze. It works in number of ways. Most immediately the idea of a ceramic anvil is absurd as it would break if you used it. This contradiction leads to one feature of the work, its embedded sound. Thus it somehow contains in its form the sound of hammer on iron as well as the sound of breaking pottery. These qualities are also present in the addition to the work – namely a ceramic heating element which heats the anvil. An anvil is of course traditionally used in smithies for working with hot metal and this object in its current form is also the product of heating and firing. But this association with the memory of heat is set against the fact that a heated ceramic anvil becomes, once again, a functional object. You could warm your gloves on it.