ceramics

No rhyme or reason

by frogpondsrock on January 31, 2012

in Arty stuff..,blogging,ceramics,thinking out loud

To the words that pop into my head. Or to the order in which I do things.

I am so time poor at the monet internet that this blog is sorely, sorely neglected.

Maybe tomorrow I will write an insightful blog post full of charm and wit.

I am typing so hurriedly that I wrote monet instead of moment in my second sentence and I sat for ten minutes pondering the significance of that word exchange and I thought it looked so nice that I have left it there. I am now thinking about blurry paintings and what a shame it was that Monet had a hissy fit and destroyed so many of his paintings.

Speaking of paintings.

I am part of a group show in Burnie in the north west of the state, that opens in less than four weeks and we have all been given a canvas to use as our Artist Statement. I painted my canvas yesterday. I am going to add some text to explain my work as well as some photographs of  the work in progress and maybe glue a cigarette lighter onto the canvas as well.

The hardest part about any job is starting.

Apparently you have to rub some white spirits over the canvas to break down the fibres. As the canvas was propped up on the shelf drying, I asked twitter how long I should wait before I started chucking some paint about. The answer I liked the most was straight away. So I set to work

These photos were taken with my phone.

I started off using a piece of cardboard as a paintbrush and smeared some yellow poster paint all over the canvas.

The cardboard soon became soggy and left little pieces of itself on my canvas, so I changed tools and started to use a cigarette lighter as my brush.I also fingerpainted quite a bit as well.

And this is the finished background to my Canvas Artist Statement. All I need to do now is tell the story of the body of work that I have made for “Fired Up” and have it all done by the end of February.

And of course remember to breathe…

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Frenetica.

by frogpondsrock on January 12, 2012

in Arty stuff..,ceramics,Dead Albatross bowls,friendship,Fun

New work by Kim Foale and Philadelphia Hanson-Viney

These next images were very hurriedly taken in my studio last night. They give you an idea of the work, that will be on display in the Off Centre Micro Gallery from today the 12th of January until Wednesday the 8th of February.

Now I have to race up to the studio, wrap the pots up and transport them all into the city, where Philly and I will set them up in situ in the gallery later on this morning. I will take photos of the work in the Micro Gallery and do an edit of this post this afternoon. Wish me luck internet.

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I am not panicking but the temptation is there internet, the temptation is there.

Do you remember when I mentioned I was having an exhibition on January the 26th with Eve Howard? An exhibition that was mostly all my friend Eve’s idea? Well internet, Eve has reluctantly cancelled as she is too busy to do our Albatross exhibition justice and we will have a fabulous joint show together at a later date.

This in itself isn’t enough to make me panic, not even enough to make me falter in my artistic stride internet. No, not at all.

What has made me contemplate panicking is the fact that another exhibitor at the Off Centre Micro Gallery has cancelled their booking and because of this cancellation, I decided to bring the date of my exhibition forward 2 weeks.

Commence panicky breathing and OH MY FUCKING GODS now.

That means that I have to have my work ready in TWELVE DAYS internet. Not the luxurious twenty six days I had up my sleeve yesterday.

12 days.

Eeek.

On the upside, I have asked another ceramic friend of mine, the very talented Philadelphia Hansen-Viney to share the space with me. Philly is going to bring some of her work up here tomorrow and we will do a bisque firing on Monday and then I plan to do a glaze firing by next Saturday the 7th of January at the very very latest.

I am going to be cutting it very very fine internet.

Very fine indeed.

I will keep you posted.

*image by Robin Roberts.

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Ceramic eggs revisited.

by frogpondsrock on December 15, 2011

in ceramics,friendship

The work creates the work is my mantra.

Well not really a mantra as I don’t fervently mutter it under my breath as I slave away in the studio smearing the sweat of hard won creations all over my brow.

It is just a knowing, a simple rule, a fact of my life.

The work creates its own energy and thus more work is created.

Recently, while having drinks together in Melbourne, Mrs Woog asked me to make a ceramic egg for her husbands birthday gift. Apparently we had already discussed this commission via email but for the life of me I couldn’t remember the emails. That line was the cue for any of you reading who I have promised work, to send me a reminder email as well. Sorry in advance for the delay.

Knowing that the egg had to be shipped to Sydney I didn’t want to make one of my handbuilt Dragon eggs as it would be akin to posting half a brick. If you have ever tried to post a brick to anyone, you will know that it is very,very expensive.

*image by Robin Roberts

In my studio practice, I handbuild, I use the wheel and I slip cast. I decided that the egg for Mrs Woog needed to be slipcast so as to be easily (and cheaply) shipped to Sydney.I had an egg mould here that I had made when I was still in the early planning stage for my sculpture display at ChauncyVale. I had only used this mould once or twice as I soon discovered that slipcast eggs were far too delicate to be left outside in the bush. In hindsight I now know that nearly all my eggs were too delicate to have been left in the bush.

So I made the ceramic egg to Mrs Woogs specifications and shipped it off to Sydney.

I have an exhibition coming up at the Off Centre Micro Gallery at the end of January. Eve Howard and I are working together with the theme of our exhibition to be The Albatross. We haven’t sorted out all the details yet, except for the dates. The joint exhibition runs for four weeks with the opening either on the 26th or 27th of January 2012.

The commission for Mrs Woog gave me a clear idea of the work that I need to make for my show with Eve Howard and these are the pieces I am working on.

*images taken with my HTC phone.

The work creates the work.

Thanks to Mrs Woog for the inspiration.

 

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Blue pots, lots of blue pots.

by frogpondsrock on November 24, 2011

in ceramics,Veronica

I opened the kiln for a quick peek yesterday afternoon and  it looked to be a successful firing.

You have no idea how pleased I am to be able to type those words internet.

I used three new glazes, I made a further two glazes using very old glaze ingredients. I didn’t have time to take notes whilst I was glazing, as I was way behind schedule and I fired to a lower temperature than normal.

In short I was leaving myself open to any number of ceramic disasters.

But the Kiln Gods were smiling on me and I am reasonably pleased with some of the work that came out of the kiln.

The glaze I used on these slipcast cups is one formulated by ceramist Ruth Langman and it is a clear gloss glaze that fires well across the mid range to higher range of stoneware temperatures. I programmed the kiln to fire to 1250 degrees centigrade but cone 9 was well down so I think the kiln is firing 20 degrees higher than the temperature gauge is telling me. I added one and a half percent of cobalt carbonate to the RL glaze and this is the result.

*Ruth Langman clear.

silica  ————————— 31

Kaolin—————————10

Neophyline syenite  ———-30

gerstley borate  —————21

wollastonite   ——————–8

I added 1.5% Cobalt Carbonate to make this blue.

 

I used a combination of three glazes on these plates WCC Black, WCC Green and RL blue

Ben’s WCC Base glaze

Potash Feldspar –30

Silica  —————33

Whiting ————-17

Kaolin —————15

To make a black glaze add 5% Iron Oxide, 2% Cobalt oxide 2%Manganese dioxide

To make green add 4.5% copper oxide.

Here are the glazes on my slipcast cups.

I haven’t made a lot of blue work before. I have used blue as a highlight on my ceramic cups but I have steered away from blue because, because? Actually I am not really sure why I have avoided blue glazes.

Maybe because blue can be so overpowering and my environmental plates are all earthy tones suited to reduction firings.

But I think I might have to follow this lot of work up with some more blue things.

Now for a WEDDING update.

The preparations for the wedding are all on track. My grand son Isaac is recovering from his virus and I am recovering from the fright he gave me. My back is mostly better and my infection has cleared up.I didn’t fire as many plates as I would have liked due to the unexpected trip to the hospital. But I have five plates for my daughter’s wedding present that I am very pleased with, some serving platters that turned out very well (photos later) and a lovely large salad bowl.

I am now feeling quite excited about the wedding rather than stressed. Veronica and I tested the livestream channel on Tuesday and we will both put live stream links up on our blogs on Saturday morning so that you can watch the wedding either here on my blog or over on Veronica’s blog, Sleepless Nights

And now internet I am off up to the local hall to fill my trailer up with folding chairs so that we all have somewhere to sit on Saturday (squeee)

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