[Long Bod]

In 1950 Wellington artist June Black purchased a kiln from Holland and her practice was transformed. Finally, she could give form to her ideas in clay and build the characters from her stories. The new kiln was small, and its size limitations gave rise to the ceramic ‘Longbod’, which comprises several small pieces that hook together. Black based the construction of her elongated and dangly figures on overlapping ceramic roof tiles. Part of her process also involved smashing Coca-Cola bottles in the garden that she melted in the kiln to form jewel-like areas within the ceramic sculptures. The works comprise multiple parts and were either hung on the wall (the Longbods) or threaded onto metal rods and set in concrete (the Rodbods). This figure wears a pocket watch and other medallions. More concerned with the figurative and conceptual, rather than form and function, Black was a maverick artist who liberated her medium from the realms of domestic ware.

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