Welded steel, 10.5 x 11 x 11, 2019
Porcelain is fired in a kiln and iron is forged at a hearth, and the title sets one fire against the other. A vessel with a spout and a looped handle, the kind of thing a potter would throw and fire in clay, is here built in welded steel and left to rust, so the china has been forged. Forged also means counterfeit, and this is a forgery no one could mistake for porcelain.
Chinese craftsmen moved vessel forms between clay and bronze for most of three thousand years, and potters copied ancient bronzes as a way of honouring them, so a copy could be a compliment. A forgery in that tradition declares its debt. The rust states which material is doing the imitating.
