Pinch Pots lined up!

Results from today's neolithic pinch pot workshop - 4 sessions over four hours with 20 children(or more) in each, you could say I'm out on my feet!

A few photo's...

We had them lined up, this curved bench was close to 4 metres long

Pinch pots

Tomorrow I will be conducting a Neolithic Pinch Pot workshop at the Abbey Museum's Archaeology Fun Day 2010 - Kids Dig-it part of the school holiday activities program.

Demonstrating the ancient 'pinch' method using natural materials to imprint the design, using shells, bone, seed pods and twigs.

Welding

Yipee! Today I had my first lesson in welding. Life has been so frantic lately I haven't had the time to scratch myself. Thankfully my last major event was last weekend and the next one isn't until December. So time to play!

A bit like puss in boots with her gumboots on, such a glamour girl around home. But I must say, I was like a pig in mud and having some fun.

My lessons went really well (chuckle, chuckle from Glen!) the welds are a tad chunky but I kinda like what is happening and happy to go with it. I ran out of day and am eager to continue tomorrow.

Collaborative w Enviro Scapes, continued...

It seems like ages since I mentioned Glen's install at Peregian Garden Centre, a month has past how times flies! Glen installed a mini landscape within the nursery for customers to get an idea of what they can incorporate into their courtyards or gardens, (pictured below) and my input was to install a sculpture onto the timber screen at the back behind the arbour.

This is a detail of the sculpture (below) and it is situated inbetween the two posts of the arbour, made with barbed wire and ceramics.

The full view, not the best photo I must add, the sun was very bright that day...

ALaW - J

J - Sgrafitto

A coloured slip is applied to the clay and carved, scratched or incised with a tool to reveal a different colour underneath

Really Rich Red slip is being applied to the tile.

Before transfering my letter J and carving into the slip I decided to burnished the tile. Burnishing gives a mirror finish to the surface, it can be traced back to ancient civilisations and was used in unglazed low temperature firings as means of partially sealing the pot, but I'm using it for pure aesthetics and experimentation to see how it responds in a high temp firing compared to that of lower temp firing.

Burnishing stones on the left and carving into the tile.
The slip always looks mottley at this stage but it will burn clean in the firing.

Burnished tile and carved...

Photographed on an angle to show the mirror finish resulting from burnishing and polishing off with a soft plastic freezer bag for extra gloss!

Women's Lifestyle Expo

It was a hive of activitiy today at the Women's Expo with huge crowds, mostly women as you would expect, endulging in all the pampering that was on offer.

The response to my ceramics was overwhelming and I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to share insights into my works, have a day off from the studio and interact with public.

Myself and Jenny, with my Unearthed ceramics.

Official opening

Today saw the official opening for Studio 4 Gallery hosted at the Mezze Bar, conveniently suituated right next door to the gallery! Guests delighted in greek tapas and champagne while exhibiting artist Heather Gall gave an informative talk on her children's illustrations.

A few happy snaps from the day...

A full house - Mezze Bar fully seated.

Gallery director (above right) Jennifer Stiller

Exhibiting artist (above right) Heather Gall with her mother Ann

Gallery director (above right) Richard Stiller

Women's Lifestyle Expo

Sunshine Coast Women's Lifestyle Expo is being held at the Lake Kawana Communtiy Centre, showcasing over 120 businesses myself included, if you happen to be in the area call in and say gidday!

I'll be exhibiting new works from my "Unearthed" ceramics and giving an insight into the makings, behind the scenes in the studio and a presentation of my works practice from the humble beginnings to the current day.

Hope to see some familar faces agmonst the crowd.....

Sat. September 11 - Lake Kawana Community Centre, Sportsmans Parade, Bokarina 9am - 5pm

ALaW - EFGH & I

EFGH & I - Techniques...

Porcelain tiles... bisque fired:

E - Resist with paper
F - Slip trail
G - Inlay
H - Resist with latex
...and
I - Resist with shellac

ps. all the finer details on each technique can be found by clicking here

A day with discarded

A few days ago I had abit of a clean up around my 'many' rusty piles I've got lying around underneath the house. When construsting my 'Discarded' sculptures I tend to have several on the go, cluttering the walk way, driveway, tables, chairs.... you name it!

I work on them periodically on passing and inbetween clay studio time, the weather has been a tad windy of late blowing in leaves and debris which accumilate in and around the pieces.

This particular piece pictured below was one that needed serious attention of de-leafing!

Titled 'Wheels in Motion" it's still in progress but is already shaping up nicely. The outer metal rim is from a cartwheel which I intend to fill with smaller wheels of sorts by welding together.

When working with found objects I tend to be driven intuitively, it's my process of surrendering and allowing what can be created, the end result is usually symbolic (as to where I am in the present moment) with spiritual overtones. It's especially clear when I start to research the symbolic meaning behind a particular object I've been drawn to. In working on 'Wheels in Motion' without any conscious thought and before I realised what I had been doing, I automatically started placing wheels into the centre of the rim... becoming wheels framed in a wheel!

Symbolically wheels have several meanings, some that resonated with me are; the creative act itself, creation unfolding, connected with the way in which progress is attained and in its turning is seen as the perfect analogy to the circle of the seasons - the dawn ever renewing the day, the eternal circuit of the sun, moon and stars.

When assembling placement is everything, it can speak louder than the spoken word and a certain sense of satisfaction is achieved, especially a welcomed 'chance happening'.

While on my cleaning rampage I happen to be hovering around 'wheels in motion' doing Sadie, moving this and that. I picked up a piece that I knew I'd been wanting vertical for some time now to no avail and without thinking to move it and clean under, it just slot it into place, it even had a groove for it to lock into....finally it found its place after a few seconds of unconscious thought over hours of deliberation!

Gotta love serendipity.

ALaW - H I

Once again two entries and two similar techniques.

H - Resist with Latex

After tracing letter & border into the clay I've put some liquid latex into a small nib bottle for easy application, well almost. After a few practice runs I finally got the hang of it thankfully latex is easily removed when a mistake happens!

I've added colour with black underglaze and used the spatter method with an old toothbrush, once dry the latex is peeled off.

Finished H - sanded, dry and ready for bisque.

I - Resist with Shellac

Traced letter into the clay and outlined the border.

With a fine brush shellac is applied to the letter and border. Once the shellac has dried a damp sponge is used to wipe back the clay.

In the bisque firing the shellac will burn out revealing the raised letter and border.

ALaW - E

Abit behind the 8 ball...doing catch up!

Techniques continue....basic methods of application when working with clay.

E - Resist with paper

E traced, cut and positioned into place on clay,

Slip made with Really Rich Red stain and porcelain clay, to a paste and brushed on,

left to dry, then paper is carefully lifted off.

Completely dry, defined all line bleed from application of slip, sanded and ready for bisque.

ALaW - F G

Two entries, two techniques.... look similar but different! Short and sweet...

F - Slip Trail

As with all previous letters; traced outline onto clay first. The Really Rich Red porcelain slip is filled into a slip trailer with a fine nib point and is trailed over outline to make the letter F and border.

Ready for bisque - sanded and sharpened lines up with a blade knife.

G - Inlay

As the names suggests, coloured clay is inlaid into the wet claybody. The letter transfered as usual, using a carving tool cutting into the clay to make the letter G and border

There are several methods of filling, such as a butter knife, brush, fingers etc...I've chosen to use the slip trailer seeing it is loaded and will give me relatively a clean process for finishing.
It's left to harden to the leatherhard stage and the excess slip is scraped off with a flexible metal kidney, revealing the lines of colour.

Finished - dry stage, sanded and ready for bisque!

ALaW - ABCD 2

ALaW 2010 - the alphabet continues - letters for July.

ABCD - Techniques....

Porcelain tiles - still in the raw stage:

A - Incising
B - Applied Decoration
C - Impression
D - Sprigg Decoration

Exhibition @ Studio4Gallery

Saturday afternoon saw an exhibition opening at Studio4Gallery 'Town of Seaside', Marcoola with Maleny artist Heather Gall.

Gallery directors Jennifer & Richard Stiller opened the doors to their new space early this year, and are hosting their Official Opening on the 9th September, 2010.

From left; Noela Mills, Fiona Dempster, me, & Jennifer Stiller

Heather Gall - pictured left talks about her works

Collaborative w Enviro Scapes

At times I have the pleasure to work with my partner Glen in our Landscape business Enviro Scapes incorporating some of my sculptural elements into the designs. Glen has just completed an 'in house' Landscape installation display at Peregian Garden Centre of timber boarders, pavers & pebbles with an arbour and eloborate timber screen framing and finishing off the design.

You can see in the photo below Glen's design and the screen at the back of the arbour, this is where I will be adding my sculptural touch...

To give you an idea of what I plan on doing, I've decided to do a smaller version from one of our collaborative efforts some five years ago at the Chateau Royale Beach Resort, Cotton Tree.

We were contracted to do a landscape garden design for the grounds and were also asked to come up with an idea to hide an unsightly window at the front entrance. We put our heads together and come up with this idea...

A stylised climber made of barb wire with foliage, leaves and budded rosesette's made in clay... attached to a timber screen. You can easily tell which element belongs to who in this design!

To make the climber element;

I first designed the layout onto a template, actual size. Then I twisted two lengths of barb wire together and twisted this onto a plain wire and attached my clay leaves and foliage randomly. In the meantime Glen constructed the timber screen on site, installation day saw many spectators looking on in curiousity as we secured it into place. The final touches were made with placement of the rosesette's.

Lotus Wares makes it's mark...

When a ceramicist develops their arts practice they eventually become renown for their particular style and medium as in any case in the arts world, an extremely good example in the field of ceramics is Johanna Demaine and her lusterwares, upon viewing her works you immediately recognise them as a 'Demaine'.

Considering myself being relatively a new comer into the ceramics world I've been developing my ceramics by practice, practice, practice!!! To date I can say that I now sit comfortably with three vains of ceramics all being very different from one another, you could even say to extreme!

My three ceramics consisting of my Unearthed Series; as seen in '500 Pitchers' by Larks Books US publication, which has now become a regular feature in at Main Street Gallery in Montville and is starting to find itself in private collections across the world, my Discarded Series very left of centre works; a fusion of rusted metal, found objects and ceramics it's primary focus revolves around my concerns with our ever changing society and discarded nature we have adopted, and then there's my Lotus wares a range of functional pottery I am starting to be recognised for at Bribie Island Community Art Centre

I was approached by one of the ladies from the Arts Centre asking if I happen to have some chard tiles of the beautiful torquoise glaze of my lotus plates....not having any broken chards to offer....me being me and my love for giving, I suggested, "better still, how about I make one specifically for it?" How could one refuse the offer!

I have an affinity with the Island, not just for its beautiful beaches that surround it, I have fond memories of many visits to my grandmother as a teenager when she lived there with fish & chips on the beach, and my sister lived there, then my mum moved there and ofcourse, I eventually moved there!

Yesterday to my delight on my trip down to the Art Centre, first thing I noticed out the front entrance was the mosaic plaque and my lotus plate.

Bribie Island Community Art Centre; Mosaic plaque gracing itself at the front entrance.

The detail of my plate,

"Kind of a humbling feeling that part of me still residing on the Island along with my memories...."

Trip to Reverse Garbage Brisbane

We had a 40th on the Weekend in Brissy, so Glen & I decided to drive down earlier and take a visit to Reverse Garbage for a look. It's a funky little pad with totally groovy bits and bobs which were destined for landfill.

Reverse Garbage collects discards from more than 300 companies around Brisbane.

I hadn't been there before and had heard alot about it, and for years now I've repeatedly been saying "I must get there, I gotta get down and check it out!"

Well, I can now say, I finally got there... yipee!!!!!!

So many groovy hand-made gifts from locals in the gift shop, once discarded items from in store.

My finds...

beaut old wooden & mesh trays and a couple of rusty wheels. I'm sure I can come up with something with these!