Joel Kuennen, Spiral Kiln v.3, May 30, 2021. Autochthonous Clay (Non-exhaustive composition by elemental prevalence: Oxygen, Silica, Iron, Aluminum, Magnesium, Calcium, Potassium, Hydrogen, Manganese, Sodium, Barium, Zinc, Carbon, Chromium, Copper, Lead, Arsenic, Selenium...), Anthrome at 42°06'53"N 85°32'09"W, Princeton Elm, Wild Black Cherry, Wood Violet, Common Tussock Sedge, Common Cattail Sedge, Blue Flax, Ditch Stonecrop, Midland Shooting Star, Silky Aster, Flat Topped Aster, White Upland Aster, Purple Pitcher Plant, Grass Pink Bog Orchid, Nodding Lady Tresses.
Spiral Kiln v.3 exists on the grounds of a former paper mill in Vicksburg, MI at the edge of a prairie that once rolled west towards the Mississippi. The last glaciers flattened this area leaving fine tills, granites, shales, bits of coal, rocks of all kinds, the size of peas and cherry tomatoes, all suspended in a thin layer of clay. Atop that, a rich mollisol collected over millennia. Animals grazed, were hunted and consumed. An ecosystem, reliable and stable, developed. Complex societies developed, complex societies invaded. The blood of animals and peoples is in the soil, the clay, a collection of minerals suspended in silical platelets. The clay here is what's called morainic clay, or boulder clay. This clay was left behind by the Laurentide glacier, as a finely powdered, hydrated mineral dust.
I began digging the kiln site about a week after I arrived to Vicksburg, MI. The sod was thick, laced with cottonwood roots. Richard Barnes brought his bobcat and dug out a doughnut for me, piling soil in a rim 30 feet in diameter around a central plateau six feet in diameter. The day I started digging, I marked three points in the sky around the circumference of the imaginary circle that would become this intervention: the location of the constellation Lyra, the point where the sun will rise on Summer Solstice, and where it will set on Winter Solstice. Three trees were planted at these points when the kiln was completed, two Princeton Elms and one Black Cherry.
Interview with Joel Kuennen about Spiral Kiln v.3. Produced by Alterra Media and Prairie Ronde Artist Residency.
I'm interested in alternative forms of marking time. What would it mean to date a work without a didactic plaque? What would it mean for an artwork to have its own system of marking time, a revolution, an oscillation between two points of the sculpture that occur in 6 month cycles. Rise in Summer, set in Winter, East, West and back again. A metronym on a biannual scale.
Clay was dug, mixed with water, sieved, then dried in large cotton racks. Around 1500 lbs of autochthonous clay was used to construct the kiln. This version was constructed with internal clay vaulting that mimics the septa of a nautilus, the thin interior chambers that support the organism's shell and help it push back on the immense pressures of the ocean.
Soil scientist Lisa Phillips analyzed the clay used in the kiln's construction. Though the content of the clay largely aligns with the types found throughout Michigan, it has its own unique characteristics. Phillips conducts environmental monitoring and reporting and so is very familiar with the site of the Mill. When I first came, I set up a meeting with her to explore the site and figure out where to dig, where to avoid. The site of the old mill needed soil remediation, mostly due to heavy metals produced in the fly ash from the coal power plant used to run the mill. There is also a concern with PFAS, a type of chemical pollution does not break down and can readily accumulate in organisms and so has become a serious problem in the US. While there hasn't been any found on the site, testing for it can be a real issue as it is commonly used in synthetic clothing.
When comparing the clay sample with the norm of the area, a deposit called the Saginaw Glacial Lobe, the majority of content variation comes in the density of iron, aluminum, and magnesium.
Spiral Kiln v.3 was fired for 72 hours, with a 48 hour cool down. Wood, mostly oak, white pine, and basswood, from trees cut down the previous year by Chris Moore was collected from along the stream next to the site. John Kern, Jackie Koney, Richard Barnes, Laurie Barnes, Taylor Kallio, Alysse Thomas, Natalya, Elyse-Krista Mische, and Tom Hardy tended the kiln in 4 hour shifts during the day. I tended the kiln at night. Each fire-tender received sculptures for their contribution to the firing of the kiln. After I unwrapped the kiln, I invited the fire-tenders and distributed the works fired within as we all shared experiences from our time with the fire at this place. They were joyous, I was thankful. Each now carries a story of their experience into the future.
Monolithics
Monolithics explores the variance of the singular: what does it mean to be one thing, one person, a singular identity within a shared environment? These objects were highly reactive within their firing environment, taking on intense patinas from the vapors present in the atmosphere. Evidence of carbon, copper, iron, sulfur and sodium all have left their mark. Their textures give a sense of the reactive flow in which they were born.
Ungendered Object
Gender feels ossified, written in bones and bodies as if it were synonymous with the bodily genitalia. My own experience with gender has been much more fluid, moving in and out of categories, assumptive performances that sometimes come from insertion into social dynamics and sometimes from within me. Hormonal shrugs into womanhood, manhood, and culminating in neither – someone in between, I am always shrouded in the performative body.
Ungendered Object seeks to externalize and concretize the ambiguity I feel day to day. Models of this ambiguity were hard to find as a child, resonant models can still be hard to find today. With these objects, I hope to create something that can hold a momentary appearance, one that can be palmed and held, felt and seen. They move out from a representation of gendered ambiguity to abstraction, creating a gradient of opportunities for identification that disappear into the realm of the object. No longer a subject, they become monoliths.
These objects were fired in Spiral Kiln v.3, 2021.
