2021 AWARD WINNER | Loughborough School of the Arts, English & Drama

DAN YOUNG

Loughborough School of the Arts, English & Drama | BA Hons Fine Art

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Describe your first encounter with clay?
I can’t honestly say that my first encounter with Clay was love at first sight - more it was just the best and easiest material for the job ha-ha! It was in my second year of university before the Pandemic where I didn’t really have an interest in ceramics (I tried to avoid the department at all costs because of how long the process takes and I was a very inpatient person) where I was only using clay to create a mould to make a sculptural form out of wax. But it really helped trigger my interest in the subjectivity of materiality and material juxtaposition/manipulation. Then as lockdown eased and the final year of my study began I realised I needed to make the most of the facilities I had on offer at Loughborough and its Ceramics facilities is one of its best assets, so I wanted to take full advantage of it and the more time I spent there the more I became hooked.

Why did you choose ceramics?
Initially…Cost! A I didn’t realise how cheap clay was and as a broke student and now broke graduate I wanted a material which was affordable whilst also allowed me to make work sculpturally which had substance and where I could afford to play with scale. It was also a medium that supplies a great deal of versatility and had both controllable and uncontrollable aspects within its working which completely enthralled my risking taking and experimental behaviour.

Where do you find inspiration?
A lot from personal narrative within my life to be honest. I’m one of those tragic, messes of a human being where there’s always something going wrong or I’m always embarrassing myself, getting myself into situations, getting drunk and then regretting my life from the night before and comfort eating. So, there’s always a story to tell and I always see the funny side of it! But yeah personal narrative is a big one, as well as my love of comfort food and Humour which is sourced from cartoons, comedy, the kitsch aesthetic and horrifically cringy things u did growing up as a kid during the 00s, that still haunt you to this day. I’m a massive fan of that cheap , dirty aesthetic that looks like it’s either come from the streets, Poundland or a charity shop as I feel it just reflects myself really well.
Artists who I really admire and that influence my practise include, Claes Oldenburg, Mike Nelson, Heather Phillipson, Martin Creed, Richard Slee and Lindsey Mendick – just to name a few.

What are the tools of your trade that you can't do without?
First are foremost my hands, as I wouldn’t be able to make any of my work without them - I did have a situation in first year where I nearly lost them when making some concrete sculptures and mixing it with bare hands…not my smartest decision but thankfully it didn’t cause too much damage. But yeah I just love the physicality of making and working with my hands, you just don’t get the same personal working connection and qualities with other materials other than clay. I’d also say my range of Mayco Stroke & Coat Glazes. I’ve made and tested 100s of colours from mixing their ranges and I just absolutely love them. You just can’t get the same vibrancy toxicity and artificial beauty that they provide.

What is a typical day in the studio like?
A typical studio day would start with me rushing into the studio at 9am without breakfast, hungover, to try empty, reload and secure a test kiln before other students arrived in the morning. Then I’d move on to preparing and filling some slip cast moulds so that they can be left to set whilst I move on to hand building or glaze testing activities. (Both activities I’d try and split an equal amount of time between the week as both have equal relations to the works end aesthetic. Perfecting the glaze and it overall finish was of massive importance to me. ) Id then get lunch, take out my casted clay forms and then typically get a crazy idea and rush to buy something cheap from a shop or off Facebook marketplace to make more work for myself for the next day. Even though my work requires structure to get things moving swiftly, my brain is very spontaneous and whenever I get a crazy idea I just have to do it. My day would then finish with me organising work which needs to be dried overnight, or jobs that need preparing for the next day and then taking home, work which needs refining which I would do whilst watching rubbish reality tv.

What do the next 12 months have in store for you?
The Complete Unknown to tell the truth. Graduating without any contacts in the arts or stability is as I am already finding, very interesting. However, I have just moved to Cardiff for a minimum of 6 months to try find some form of stability in an affordable city back in my homeland of Wales. I’m working fulltime retail at the moment, to try get out of my overdraft but I’m in hope of joining a collective or studio group with access to ceramic facilities to continue my practise (which I’m in the middle of applying to so fingers crossed all goes well). The plan however is to try securing a graduate residency in an institution which specialises in sculpture. Possibly somewhere abroad as I’m young, in need of a holiday and why not!

What advice do you have for those currently studying ceramics in further education?
My top advice would be to not constrain your practise to create relations to ceramics traditional craft history. Just using the way medium in a contemporary manner already distinguishes that link and already creates interesting discourse and is sufficient. But definitely to make the most of the facilities on offer at art school as it can be quite difficult to secure them upon graduation, ceramics is a practice that thrives on controllability and unpredictability so make the most of the facilities and just experiment! Given the opportunity again id go crazy aha! But also, there’s already a lot of seriousness and pretentiousness within the artworld so just make something fun!