Caitlin Froud

I can simply say that this project it was certainly an unexpected journey. Evolving from the darkest cloisters of the dairy aisle to the contours of the human ear, it somehow seemed a natural shift.

My journey started at the looking closely at the dairy industry as I was thinking about exposing its spoiled secrets. However, after doing some initial research of the industry, it swiftly changed as a few weeks into the project, I had a deeply explorative conversation with my mother, where we shared thoughts on ears at great length. I began looking into biometrics and the case of Anna Anderson; an imposter claiming to be Princess Anastasia Romanov of Russia but was exposed at trial where her ears gave her away. I quickly became completely absorbed and intrigued by the subtle but visible fingerprint uniqueness of human ears. The project then took a turn with ears as the focus, stemming from initially using myself as a muse and delving into my own experience with tinnitus as well as conducting ‘ear interviews’ looking at the appearance of other people’s ears and their accompanying thoughts and feelings. I began to work under the title ‘Lend Me Your Ears’, with the double meaning of others literally lending me their ears to photograph as well as referencing Marc Antony’s speech in Julius Caesar where he call for people to listen and pay attention. These conversations with friends and family were actually rather interesting as when asked if I was able to photograph their ears, there was a slight defensiveness or insecurity about them. I suppose you aren’t necessarily confronted with your ears like this, and without these photographs you don’t often think about them (unless you have tinnitus or any other ear condition; then ears practically consume your waking days).

It was in the wake of this new idea, diving deep into researching all I could gather that I began to form one of the cornerstones of this project: small and somewhat accurate ears made from old pieces of green garden wire, starting with my mother’s. After looking into some of the classical sculptural and architectural work of Édouard Lantéri, Rodin and Donatello as well as Michael M. Hensley, I tried to be as accurate as I could, and every single one turned out differently (which was rather amazing) despite using a similar standard process for each one.

Having gathered the artist research and remembered snippets of conversation with different people, these garden wire ears began to form relief work by impressing them into clay. The clay took the form of twelve eleven centimetre squared and around two-centimetre-deep tiles, with the ears of twelve family and friends pressed into the middle of them. These tiles would then be bisque fired, a transparent glaze applied and fired once again, creating a glossy sheen on a toasty brown tile. I did experiment a little with colour but chose to use a transparent glaze as I wanted the allow the ear shape to sing and be centre stage and felt the addition of colour, although beautiful, it may distract from the ear. The final twelve tiles, although transparent, did carry some variation and I rather like how they didn’t turn out completely identical as it speaks to our ears’ individual uniqueness.

I also decided to include an audio element to the final piece, feeling it would be neglectful not to when in the realm of ears. As a pianist, I chose to use a blithely beautiful prelude by Debussy, with its effortless exploration of the lower and higher registers, in an attempt to remind us of how grateful we should be for the existence of ears so that we may listen to such classically exquisite music.

This project was certainly not a smooth ride and may continue to evolve, but for me it has brought an awareness of letting go of plans and not being afraid to be your own muse once in a while.