Fleeting Hour, Aotearoa Art Fair 2022

Hanahiva Rose

Fleeting hour

Blue

When I visited Jaime in her studio earlier this year, I was struck by the environment she works in — in the middle of a landscape that is fertile, lively, and all-enveloping. It was a bright late-winter morning, as we wound out of busy Mount Maunganui, up into the quiet hills of Ohauiti. I remember being surprised at our distance from the ocean — having always associated Jaime with the water. I mention this to her and she smiles, telling me that while she usually makes her work with a domestic space in mind, Fleeting hour belongs to the coastline.

Then, the works were in various stages of development. Some large, solid forms sat in the corner, glazed and fired. On a bench sat another large work-in-progress: the careful architecture of its various pieces a reminder of the mechanics each structure involves.  A few smaller floor-based sculptures, these ones formed from delicate webs of clay, were waiting for their final firing, glaze already applied. And, down the other end of the studio, another family of work - some bisqued, the rest drying.

Seeing Jaime’s work in progress, the demanding process of working with clay —shaping, drying, firing, glazing, and firing again — and the volatility of each of the various steps is clear. At every stage, the artworks undergo a form of transformation, changing shape, texture, colour. All these interventions into the clay, and then what seems like the impossibility of anticipating how everything will come together — or explode — in the kiln. 

Yellow

Jaime shows me some test firings, sitting beside careful notes on each of the glazes. Colour is one of the things that makes her work unexpected. There is the scale and structure of things, and then there is the colour — pure swathes of dense colour. For whatever reason, the yellow is the biggest surprise, although she’s worked with it before. It wraps around sturdy, solid shapes and climbs up wobbly ones. My trip to Ohauiti happens just as kōwhai are coming into bloom, and for weeks afterwards the little yellow flowers are a reminder of Jaime’s work, which is slowly moving towards completion.

Jaime has talked before about wanting to make everyday objects out of clay — things we might not expect — which is where the functionality of many of the objects comes from: places to sit, to put a cup, arrange some flowers. In other works, it opens new possibilities: a yellow ceramic curtain that doesn’t block light but seems to give physical form to the effect of dappled sunlight — a dividing structure that grants new shape to the space behind it, more than it does block it off.

Green

Those greens: bright spring leaves and deeper, mossy forest tones. They appear to come straight from nature, as do the other defining characteristics of Jaime’s work  — the constant play between presence and absence, her ongoing exploration of the relationship between lightness and solidity, the desire to find equilibrium between extremes — taking their cures from the delicate balance of the world beyond the studio.

That said, it’s not so simple as bringing the outside in. The artworks themselves are resolutely handmade: Jaime’s interventions into her materials are clear. And even — perhaps especially — the most organic forms are countered by staunchly geometric forms: like a string of green leaves, held together by ceramic link chain.

Jaime says she often finds herself with a desire to shift from one of these modes into another — after making a heavy, floor-based work she might carry on to a light, suspended form — and you can see that in Fleeting hour, where she’s taken the opportunity to stretch, finding new ways to make the space her own. 

Brown

These are artworks made to be lived with: they invite interaction and activation. Wall-mounted vases, waiting for flowers; hanging tapestries, ready to catch the light; hanging expectantly for a breeze; uneven textures to run a hand along; flat surfaces for other objects to rest. Jaime is interested in the life of artworks, seeing them to be in constant conversation with the spaces they occupy. To these spaces, her objects bring the process of their making with them. The careful, forceful moods of the kiln: unexpected colours, changing shapes. Cracks are carefully filled with resin — fragility recognised, acknowledged, and countered.

As the day passes at Jaime’s studio, the light changes. Just as we go to leave, I walk around the artworks once more. In this new light, details I haven’t noticed before suddenly appear. On a large, finished ledge, I see an unexpected texture and take a closer look. There it is — perfect and clear ­— the imprint of a palm, followed by outstretched fingers. Everywhere: the presence of her hand.