Clay Sculpting Combined with Nature Observation

Sanmin Tan is an artist and researcher based in Edinburgh. She is in the third year of her PhD research at Edinburgh College of Art (the University of Edinburgh). Sanmin uses clay as a primary material in her artwork and research projects. She also employs documentary filmmaking to investigate the interactions between her creative research practices and audiences.

Sanmin’s artistic explorations deepen her understanding of how the inner world and external world can be touched and connected by clay and hands. This builds a foundation for her research work in developing clay exercises to support people’s health and well-being. 

Clay sculpting combined with nature observation

Nature observation is not only about noticing the life of plants but also about understanding plants as one kind of being that conveys or reveals the laws of nature, the same laws that work on human beings. In this case, nature observation includes at least two layers.

One layer is about using our basic human senses to learn and appreciate our local environment while observing patterns in the life of plants and animals. It also helps us distinguish different stages of their growth and gain first-hand experience of the outcome of the creative and formative forces working within nature. It all starts with how you choose to engage with the world around you.

Another layer is about the energy (Yin and Yang) exchange process which is behind the growing process. Joseph A. Adler introduced Yin and Yang in his book The Yijing : a guide:

“The original meaning of yin was the shady side of a hill; yang was the sunny side. Yin and yang are not things or substances, they are modes. Yin is the dense, dark, sinking, wet, condensing, passive, receptive, “earthy” mode of qi; yang denotes the light, bright, rising, dry, expanding, active, creative, “heavenly” mode. Thus, yin and yang are the most fundamental pattern ordering the cosmos. On the level of concrete existence as opposed to abstract pattern, the substance of that change is qi 氣.” (Adler, J. A. 2022. The Yijing : a guide New York, NY, Oxford University Press, 21.)

In this sense, Nature’s Calendar volunteers are observing their local environments’ natural events and rhythms as well as the influences of Yin and Yang.

Human-beings’ senses and their sensory experiences are powerful instruments to understand these two layers and their connections. In my research project, I explore how the practice of clay sculpting offers an approach to bringing this observation and understanding to the light, transforming abstract meaning into visible objects and providing experiential activity for practitioners and individuals to support mental health and well-being.

In this research project, the combination of hand-built clay sculpting and nature observation is based on an individuals’ everyday engagement with their local environment through their own senses. This allows us to experiencing the force (of a growing bud or clay making etc.) from within. What you observe is also happening inside you.

The photos above are taken form my visual sculpture diary related to my nature observation and lived experience.

From February 2024, I observed nature daily to experience the embodiment of the local environment. For instance, I recorded the growing process and events of a chestnut tree. This observation contributed to my first-hand experiences and feelings of the gestures and understanding that underpin abstract words such as, “openness” and “fresh”. This is a way for me to connect with the place I am living in. Also, how I position myself in a network of nature, community, and my inner world. I then take the rhythms of nature into both my breath and my sculpting. (see figures 1 and 2):

“Saturday, March 9th 2024, Edinburgh Cloudy 4-7 degrees
The abstract word, Openness, and my invisible feelings about it find their accommodation, Chestnut buds, in March in Edinburgh around the Blackford Hill area. The buds hold the finest leaves tightly and the shape looks like a cocoon, but a strong inner strength opens the buds and the leaves can breathe the fresh air. A conflict of holding and opening is quiet and gentle. I create a piece of sculpture with clay in March, which is based on the word, Fullness. Position the fullness in my secret garden, Blackford Hill, the Chestnut buds and Sycamore buds explain their different fullness in the Spring, I can see Chestnut leaf veins holding together like human fingers, which are covering their little flower buds. The Sycamore buds in March are still sleeping but are ready to open their eyes, but I haven’t seen any of their leaves at all. From observing buds, I gain a fresh understanding about fullness in nature. The tiny elliptical buds hold the fullness of a life circle. My clay sculpture merges my nature observation and feelings based on present which deeply links to my lived experience in the past, to rebirth as a gesture and an object.”

You can find Sanmin’s profile on the University of Edinburgh website.

If you’re inspired to observe the nature around you, or, if like Sanmin, you’re an artist and noticing nature is part of your practice already, why not register to take part in Nature’s Calendar and upload your observations to this internationally important database.