art attack

HONOR FREEMAN GIVES US THE LOWDOWN ON HER CERAMIC SOAP MASTERPIECE.

Supposedly, we will each use an average of 656 bars of soap in a lifetime. This piece, Soap Score, is comprised of 656 porcelain soaps and is a monument to a life – to the small, constant rhythms and moments. I like the intimacy of these objects that we use when we’re at our most vulnerable, and the way they simply wear away over time, dissolving and disappearing. They remind me of worn pebbles in a river or at the beach, or weathered driftwood, cracked and dried. Clay, and particularly porcelain, has an amazing ability to mimic other surfaces and textures. For Soap Score, I first made plaster moulds of discarded cake soap – some my own, but most arriving in the post as sweet-smelling gifts from afar – then each piece was meticulously cast, carved, sanded, grimed and fired, before the individual elements were arranged and rearranged to make the final work.