Seth Novick

Throwing and trimming functional spinning tops is my attempt at taking the balancing act of ceramics to an extreme. The tops are first thrown very delicately as small vases. When trimming, there is no room for error: if the piece is slightly off center it will not spin. The pieces must be fired upright on stilts otherwise the running glaze will off center them. While an unbalanced bowl or plate will still work as a bowl or plate, an unbalanced top will collapse. A disproportionate amount of detail goes into the entire process. The expected result of this is to introduce another dimension to ceramics: movement. Pottery is tactile inherently. By adding movement to the medium I've attempted to add a kinetic element as well. The unexpected result of this project is that it takes one more step from kinetic to auditory. The sounds that the polished ceramic points make when they ricochet around become almost as important as the visuals and movements that precede them. Watching one top spin hypnotizes you the same way as watching another, but the different sounds they make on different surfaces elicit a variety of feelings. These feelings often link directly to concrete experiences. The clink-clank of a narrower point on a glass lens sounds like swimming pool water finally draining from your ear. The chaos of an unbalanced top sounds like being tickled. The growing whir of a top that travels as it spins on particle board sounds like falling asleep on a rocking boat. The dull thud of a bottom heavy top on linoleum sounds like postnasal drip. The silence of a perfectly balanced top spinning on its point sounds like tension. Realizing which life experiences come to mind with these interactions is very satisfying because the hypnotic visuals and calming audio are therapeutic in nature. In future work I would like to explore this more by creating pieces with specific sounds in mind, rather than stumble upon them post-production.
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