The Jeremiah 18 project is an ongoing series of works that explore the nature of change and transformation, control and the un-controlled, and the fragility of the human condition within the vagaries of life and relationships.

In the 18^th Chapter of the book of Jeremiah, God speaks to the prophet Jeremiah:

The Lord gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, ² “Go down to the potter’s shop, and I will speak to you there.” ³ So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. ⁴ But the vessel he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. ⁵ Then the Lord gave me this message: ⁶ “O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.

This chapter uses the imagery of the potter and the clay and focusses on the decisions and intention that the potter has for the clay. The clay is crushed back down, away from the original intent and purpose of the vessel the potter had in mind. In returning to clay, it has become ‘useless’ again – formless, raw material. Every aspect of its perceived identity is de-constructed, its usefulness and function erased at the desire of the potter. It is simply clay in the hands of another.

So too, with the human condition. The gulf that suddenly appears in our soul when circumstances and decisions beyond our control break us down to our base material. In the formlessness of this state, we often want to desperately shape for ourselves that which we would become. Yet, as we yield to the potter, the new is gently formed, and with it a greater solidity of purpose and identity – but to launch out when we remain formless is premature, messy, oozy, we inadvertently take the shape of whatever we find ourselves pushing up against – at best we take the form of other dominant influences in our lives – at worst we may pull apart all together.

Yielding to this very uncomfortable process is the nature of creativity.

The Jeremiah 18 series of works explores this process both conceptually and materially through a collision of drawing approaches that embody highly controlled figurative elements, disrupted by a range of expressive techniques. The play between these two modes reveal unintended and unanticipated results that only this disruptive process could create. Yielding to the tension of both control and the un-controlled allows the transformative nature of creativity to be revealed.