(Softshell and other) Turtles as Allegory

The most prominent image in Orah Ayalon’s works in recent years is the turtle. The specific type. Of turtle that forms the backdrops of her works is called a softshell turtle, but even before going into the trials and tribulations of this particular rare species, the very presence of turtles triggers a preconditioned response, prompting us to perceive them as an endangered species in recent years. Ayalon’s primary material is ceramic, and here too, the immediate response is one of pre-conditioning regarding the clay: the ambivalence of a material which is, on one hand, the greatest survivor of all times, the quintessential archaeological relic, and on the other hand – an endangered material in terms of both artistic expression and status in the world of art. The material with which Ayalon constructs her works – the turtles and all other joints and links, rings, coils, surfaces, and lumps – is colorless fired clay; a material whose whitish-gray presence transmits simplicity and modesty, and strangely enough, it conveys the feeling of something, or someone, who does not exert itself to be liked, stand out or charm. It is self-evident, as neutral as it gets, succumbing to whatever one wishes to do with it (and Ayalon does perform a wide range of acts on it, with it, in it), and yet, its presence as a material with history, qualities, characteristics, and technical possibilities is quite powerful. Whichever way you look at these works and the ceramic material, whichever way you interpret the presence of the helpless softshell turtles – it is the story of extinction and survival, in the shadow of an ecological threat, in a changing art world, vis-a-vis the threat of a merciless material culture. It is a discussion about extinction and survival in general.

The story of the softshells is a simple one: a species of turtles that live in fresh water and are doomed to die in seawater. The Israeli public became aware of their story several years ago. Found mainly in the Alexander River, an impending flood put these helpless turtles in danger of being washed out to sea. An emergency rescue operation was implemented in an effort to avert this virtual death sentence – but only a small number of turtles were saved. The particular case of this rare species is only part of the bigger story of water turtles – ecological problems now put hard-shelled sea turtles at risk of becoming endangered species due to ecological catastrophes, despite the attempts being made by Green organizations to prevent their extinction. Hence, the turtles serve both as a story in and of itself and as an allegory. Orah Ayalon’s works comprise discrete series, addressing issues such as destruction, death, memory, and adherence to practice as a means of survival from different perspectives. In some of the series, the ceramic matter is pressed between metal fragments, compacted between scraps, so that at times it appears like minced meat, at other times it is fleshy and processed like pouring dough and at yet other times it simply looks like decoration. The linkage between the white clay and the rusty metal scraps transforms these objects into odd hybrids that eliminate the ostensibly existing gap between the constituent elements: the iron scraps are no more heroic than the lumps of clay; the metal waste and the ceramic block are both brave survivors in a material culture that has no sentiments, neither for those who were once part of a production line nor for a material with a rich cultural history that seeks its existence in-between a world of craft and a world of art.

The small objects are lined up in rows, some on long wooden boards, others standing on shelves. At first one gets a glimpse of the total array; a closer look lingers on the details: the rusty machine parts gradually acquire human forms; there is something centered about them all – they are fragments that are transformed, each in its turn, into a whole. Gradually the eye identifies bodies of sorts, dropped heads, outstretched arms, wings, and certain recurring symmetrical proportions that echo the shape of a cross or a crucifix, conjuring up a sacrificial air. On the other hand, there is also something amusing about them. Some of these little creatures seem like mechanical toys, others – like surreal objects, surprising and unexpected figments of the imagination. All these metal-clay cross-breeds effectively convey a synthesis of opposites, a symbiosis of contradictory qualities: the industrial metallics with the organicity of the clay, phallic elements with round feminine forms, stiff and soft, dark and
light.

While some of the small objects tend to look like decorations, others transmit a sense of machinery. The immediate associations evoked are faucets, grinders, and various constructions with openings and apertures from which the clay flows, is poured, emitted, ground, or compressed. An attempt to encapsulate this entire spectrum of manifestations would eventually lead to a concluding formula in the spirit of antithetical forces, while the antithetical materials – metal and clay – are the immediate means conveying the concern with dichotomous powerful forces.

The turtles themselves emerge in different sizes, represented through the symmetrical, ornamental scheme of the arched back. Whether they are attached like medallions to square plates or create a multi-storied structure of turtle atop turtle – iron lines wrapped with ceramic material emerge from both ends, rendering them entities in between flyers, swimmers, and reptiles. Eventually, they are fixed in place, their bodies perpetuated and reproduced as a decorative sign language, like fossils of something that once existed and is now gone.

A sense of indefinite, unidentified creatures is also conveyed by the large floor piece installed at the Artists’ Residence Gallery, Herzliya, which is made of a branching metal frame with rings of clay in varying shapes bound around it: they enwrap the thin metal lines, link upon link, wrap them like sleeves or support them on the floor in the form of a square basis that transforms the metal legs into crutches of sorts. The metal frame spawns a multi-legged, multi-vertebrae creature that is analogous to both an architectural structure and an intricate biological structure. The links between the metal joints are marked by a clay square on which the letter “W” is engraved, at times painted in different colors, thus generating the only color stains in this wriggly, rusty-white modular body. Scattered on the floor, in between the metal legs, are lumps of white clay created via palm presses. The infinite multiplicity – of pressed little lumps, of rings, of wrapped sleeves – triggers a called-for association with issues of reproduction, duplication, and mass, near-industrial production. In this sense it was only natural, Ayalon believed, that at some point she would require the help of assistants to create the lumps of clay, and in keeping with the nature of the work – pay them an hourly rate, as in an industrial factory. The optimization attempt eventually failed: as in the case of any, even the simplest, manual labor, here too, it turned out that some basic proficiency was necessary to make the working rate not only “profitable”, but also apt and authentic in terms of production mode. Thus, Ayalon again reverted to being the sole producer in her private factory for lumps of clay. The hundreds of small clay blocks and the vertebrae wrapped like rings are akin to her endlessly reproduced signature.

The viewer’s gaze shifts from the isolated items – each created separately, in the palm of her hand, as the absolute embodiment of the identification between “handicraft” and “handwriting” – to the innumerable mass containing hundreds of components. The obsessive, addictive, therapeutic, and sweeping nature of the work with clay is powerfully present.

Most of Ayalon’s works are founded on the basic principle of repetition, a feature that generates a frantic and expressive atmosphere as a point of departure for creation. At times it is a single element recurring countlessly, at others it is a more limited repetition. Perhaps it is something about the direct contact with the clay that produces the very fascination with manual labor and the addiction to the ongoing practice, perhaps it is the very subject matter of the works – the fear of death – that effectuates an almost desperate adherence to continuous manufacturing of more and more objects. In the case of the manually-squeezed clay lumps, the basic, simple, repetitious practice acquires a dimension of healing that has a
distinct ritualistic facet: the feeling that you can take the lumps of clay made by squeezing in the palm of your hand and put them in your pocket, like idols, like ritual figurines, like rosary beads. This is the paradoxical quality of the clay: on one hand, it is typified by a primordial, almost “primitive” quality in terms of its making, on the other hand, it conveys the alienation of an industrial material that calls for reproduction, ostensibly neutralizing the personal touch with which each object is infused.

Those metal arms wrapped with ceramic material, which in one case function as organs in the angular body of a multi-legged creature, also comprise a totally different type of work when they are arranged in short lines, one next to the other, one below the other, in uniform rhythm. The thin poles create a rhythmical screen; names are engraved on the ceramics enwrapping them, the names of Ayalon’s family members, inscribed in the form of web addresses: www before the name, and co. il after it. Tamar, Ayala, Uri, Nurit, Dana, Ayalon – Hebrew names in Latin letters that make up a large and flickering screen, popish on one hand, threatening and disconcerting on the other: the act of inscription, writing the name over and over again in order to preserve it, as a type of commemoration and as a kind of act against the evil eye. Furthermore, one cannot avoid the association of orderly rows of names inscribed on commemoration walls for the fallen and the dead. The light addendum of the
Internet only slightly dulls the morbid sarcasm.

The ritualistic-ceremonial sense results possibly from the repetition, possibly from the pristine quality of the clay, and possibly due to the context in which Ayalon situates all her works: in the shadow of extinction, in the face of a death threat.

While the screen of names is made of iron poles wrapped with ceramic material, there is another curtain-like screen made of ultra-thin clay plates with newspaper pages printed thereon. The pages are bound together with thin wires. The shift undergone by the ceramic matter – which from time immemorial has been identified with three-dimensional qualities, with being a receptacle – into a two-dimensional surface, into the pages of a book, defines the wide range of possibilities introduced by Ayalon’s works concerning the clay. She spreads and stretches it, wraps it, sculpts, kneads, presses and compresses it, engraves in it, links it with other materials inscribes thereon, extracts therefrom the entire register of feelings it is capable of transmitting from the banal and decorative through the ritualistic and festive to the industrial and anonymous. Thus, signifier and signified ultimately merge: the softshell turtle and the struggle for its survival are but an allegory for a medium that has survived all technological and artistic vicissitudes which is but an allegory for creation and production as a type of adherence to life and survival in general.

Ruth Direktor