Stunning, magnificent, and will leave you in awe - that was my initial reaction when I went to the Two Temple Place.
The place features the works of three generations of Black women clay artists, promoting ceramic craftsmanship.
To highlight it, the area itself is fascinating because the structure is so lovely, with all of the unique decorations, and it's kind of mind-blowing that someone constructed it and lived there, putting everything they wanted in it.
Before going to the actual Body Vessel Clay exhibition, guests are allowed to tour the Two Temple building, where the Astor family lived. It has Tudor influences and is built in a Neo-Gothic Romantic style. The half-timber detailing is the most prevalent design characteristic of Tudor-style houses.
Many Tudor Revival homes were built entirely of red-toned brick, alleviating some of the two-toned decorations typical of early Tudor architecture in England. Additionally, the brick decoration is typically highly decorative around windows, chimneys, and entryways.
Moreover, Astor's favourite novel was The Three Musketeers, and he had wooden figurines of the characters adorning the stairwell. He also had more figurines from Robin Hood adorning the mahogany ceiling.
Astor was a paranoid man who reinforced the house with two strong rooms. Inside, the house features an Italian marble floor and a lot of literary and nautical themes throughout the house.
It also had wooden panels depicting American, English, and French literature, including figures from Shakespeare's The Tempest and The Scarlet Letter.
Upstairs, satinwood flooring and concealed doorways lead to more rooms. In his huge office space are stained glass windows with sunrise and sunset views.
It also has a room with cedar wood panelling in pencil. He believed that Cedarwood flooring is said to be soothing and repel moths. Because Astor had weak eyesight and couldn't see them, they were painted in gold.
In general, the rich and fascinating history of the place and the Astor family drew me in the most.
Furthermore, after the tour inside the Two Temple building, we were instructed to go to the main event, which is the Body Clay Vessel Exhibition - Black Women, Ceramics and Contemporary Art. It ran from the 29th of January 2022 to the 24th of April 2022.
The exhibition celebrates the craft in fresh and surprising ways. This significant new exhibition draws together a rich history with creative contemporary works by Black women working with clay today, beginning with the seminal Nigerian potter, Ladi Kwali. It examines her relationship with 1950s British Studio Pottery.
This fresh viewpoint on one of the world's oldest art forms reinterprets Kwali's impact and its reverberation on a newer generation of worldwide contemporary women artists working with clay in radical new ways. The show has art by Magdalene Odundo DBE, who collaborated with Kwali, Bisila Noha, Phoebe Collings-James, Shawanda Corbett, Chinasa Vivian Ezhuga, Jade Montserrat, and Julia Phillips.
The Body Vessel Clay exhibition was supported by a jam-packed schedule of lectures, events, late-night openings, and craft workshops to fully understand the rich history of contemporary clay artworks of Black Women.
Even though it had some amazing ceramics, nothing truly blew my mind. The pottery on exhibit appeared to have taken a long time and a lot of effort to create, and it had a natural and simple appearance. There were a few standout pieces that were more ornamented than the rest that I really appreciated.
To conclude, the exhibit is absolutely packed with creative and interesting ceramics. It indeed showed that Kwali was not only leaning confidently into her talent, but she was also paving the way for other women to experiment with ceramic craftsmanship as a source of expression and creativity.
