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Hayne Bayless, Sideways Studio, Ivoryton, CT
Hayne's work in clay draws on his desire to make everyday objects that go beyond everyday use. Function is as much a part of their value to him as any aesthetic concerns. How his pots work is at least as important to as how they look or how they feel.
The pots are not so much about balance and harmony, although that does happen, but more about tension. Hayne loves what spawns in the friction between what he wants the material to do and what it would rather do.
The unintended result, often misread as a mistake and so dismissed, is one of the most fertile sources of new ideas. The trick is not to fool with clay's inherent desire to be expressive. Pay attention to the clay, not only for the sake of each piece, but because the clay will offer – or impose – its own suggestions of new forms and ways to work.
The techniques of hand-building let Hayne take advantage of the clay's ability to capture gesture and movement, its power to record processes. He is intrigued by what happens when clay is rolled, stretched, pressed, incised, inlayed, extruded, bent, cut and put back together.
Hayne get lots of inspiration from Shang and Zhou Dynasty ritual bronzes, Jomon-period pots, English and Colonial silver, pewter and tinware, contemporary architecture and sculpture, Andean folk music and 1960s rhythm & blues. The common thread running through these disparate sources is a love of form, rhythm and a delight in disregarding limits.
He likes what Constantin Brancusi wrote in 1927:
“Each material has its own life ... we must not try to make materials speak our language, we must go with them to the point where others will understand their language.”
