I have dived headlong into the Game of Thrones series of books. I have nearly completed book two and I am at the stage where I am thinking about the characters as I go about my daily tasks. I even took the book up with me to the studio the other day and during the course of the day found a good rythm, whereby I made a couple of pots, read a few pages, gazed at the sky for a bit and then made a couple more pots. It was a good afternoon.

I am not quite at the stage where I am dreaming about the characters but I am sure that will happen as I immerse myself in the third book.

Life would be so empty without glorious, fat novels that transport me into another world and another time.

Thank you George R. R. Martin you are now firmly in my favourites list, right next to Robin Hobb and Pamela Freeman.

I am rushing to publish this edition of Sunday Selections before I have to race out the door and spend the day in the Off Centre Gallery.

Here is a sunset especially for Jientje from Heaven is in Belgium.

Jientje sent me a lovely piece of handmade lace that she made that was inspired by the Tasmanian sky.

This next set of three were all taken last summer. These are gum leaf skeletonizer caterpillars. They are poisonous and will spit at you but I quite like the cranky little things.

The Blurb.

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

Easy Peasy.

When I first put my ceramic sculpture proposal to the trustees of the Chauncy Vale wildlife sanctuary I was warned that some of my eggs might go missing. I replied that I was fine with that because I really didn’t think that someone would bother to pinch the eggs. I also assumed that the eggs would only go missing if I left them down there for longer than a few days and then it would be my own silly fault.

As usual I am writing in circles.

Last Sunday the 6th of Feb was the annual ChauncyVale family day. I have been making large and small ceramic eggs over the course of the last year in readiness for this one day in the bush.

I wanted to have some nests of largish ceramic eggs about the size of emu eggs in the bush just off the side of the track that people could either see or not see, depending on how observant they are. Over the course of the year as I worked through my grief from the early death of my mother, the proposal morphed and changed so that I also had some quite large eggs and egg-like sculptures.

On Saturday the 5th I placed the eggs in situ and (this is the important bit) didn’t bother to take any photos.

Sunday morning I went down to check that I was still happy with the placement of the eggs and set up for the busy day ahead and all was well.

I had a bit of car trouble, stupid car, and when I finally turned up at Chauncy Vale an hour before opening time, everyone was already there setting up their various stalls. I got completely sidetracked and again did not take any photos of my work in situ.

From the moment the first visitors arrived I was flatstick busy. Constantly surrounded by an ever changing sea of children and also some adventurous adults we all made ceramic eggs and had heaps of fun playing in the mud together.

I honestly was that flat out I barely had time to scratch myself.

At the end of the day I packed up the car and decided that photographing the eggs could wait until the next day. I drove home totally and completely knackered but also very happy with the days effort. People had liked my work and we had made and decorated over 40 ceramic eggs, one ashtray and a snake.

I drove back down to Chauncy Vale yesterday morning to photograph the eggs and bugger me dead, heaps of them were missing. HEAPS.

Some bastard had pinched the eggs.

I was gobsmacked.

I expected some to go missing if I left them down in the bush for longer than a few days but I certainly didn’t expect the thieves to be that bloody quick. I also didn’t expect the larger eggs to be stolen because they were bloody heavy.

I made a few phone calls and the general consensus seems to be that the eggs were all there when everyone had left for the night.

I tweeted that some of the eggs were missing and luckily the gorgeous norfickchick had taken photos.

Norfick chick also blogs as sleepy dwarf and these photos are all hers that she emailed to me last night.

This next photo shows a very depleted nest. I had placed about nine eggs in this nest and by the time that  sleepy dwarf had photographed them there were only 5 in the nest. I had expected that the children would move them around and that I would find them scattered all about the place. Or that children would come up to me holding eggs saying look what they had found. I didn’t expect to go back less than 24 hours after the event closed to find ALL of the eggs missing.

All of these eggs have been taken.

The Spouse and I looked in the creek because these would make a very satisfying splash but no luck.

The list of missing eggs grew longer the further up the track I walked. Both these eggs were taken.

As was the green egg on the right in this photo. These dragon eggs are quite large, about 18 inches or so high and they are quite heavy. They also have my name and the date 2010 inscribed into the bottom of them.

The little egg here next to the sculpture was also taken. I really liked this little egg as it was my prototype for a series I am developing. If you shake this little egg it makes a nice clink because there is a ceramic bead inside it.

So, all up three large eggs and about ten smaller eggs were taken.

It was a very bitter encore to what had been a fantastic day out.

Here are some photos of the newest dragon eggs.

Two dragon eggs are out of the electric kiln and I have been staring at them and thinking about them for a week now.

Today I took them outside to play.

I was concentrating on photographing the eggs and nearly missed these two beauties soaring high above me in the winter sky.

Today was a good day.

If I think about how much I actually have to do in the next three months or so, I start to get a bit panicky. I have a bit of an “EEEK!!!” moment and my chest tightens up and I start to breathe a little bit faster. This feeling of being overwhelmed, of having far too many irons in the one fire lasts for a minute or so and then my laid back Aussie spirit kicks in and as I whisper, “She’ll be right” to myself  I am fine again.

A few weeks ago I attended a weekend ceramic workshop with two ceramic artists from Finland, Nanna Bayer and Riitta Talonpoika. I had never heard of these artists before the workshop but once I had googled their work I knew that I would come away from the workshop with a lot to think about.

I have played about with Neriage or coloured clay before but I have never really thought about it seriously. I tend to work intuitively and let the clay or the idea lead me. Lately I have been spending an awful lot of time thinking about the dragon eggs and the different styles of eggs that I want to make. As I want some brightly coloured eggs as well as some fossilised rock like ones, I knew that neriage would be a technique that I would use.

Here is a step by step process showing how I made a swirly patterned porcelain egg.

Weigh out approximately 500 grams (1 lb) of clay and press a hole into the centre of the clay. Add 2 level teaspoons of coloured body stain. These weights and measures are only a rough guide as I wont know what worked and what didn’t until the piece is fired.

Then add a dribble of water to the powder to make a paste.

You will notice that I am wearing gloves, this is because a lot of the materials used in ceramics are toxic and can be absorbed through the skin. I have consumed enough toxins in the last twenty or so years to last me a lifetime and I don’t need any more.

You now need to wedge (knead) the clay until all the colour is mixed through thoroughly. I spent all morning making coloured blocks of clay yesterday. I used varying amounts of coloured stain for each different coloured block depending on its strength. I would highly recommend taking detailed notes so that you can alter the weights of the body stain if the coloured clay fires either too bright or not bright enough.

Also clean hands and cleaning your work space each time you finish making a coloured block of clay is really important. I have accidentally put a green thumbprint on the blue and red blocks, luckily it was easy to remove but this kind of carelessness can potentially ruin a mornings work.

I wanted a dark blue, sky blue and white egg to start with so I made a layered block of clay by putting slices together side by side. The pretty mauve colour will fire to an almost navy blue.

I banged the clay around a bit on the table to squish everything together. Then I sliced the block in half and started the process of carefully wedging the clay together.

I wanted a swirly pattern so I kept on wedging the clay until I was happy with the colour balance.

Once I was happy with the colour balance I put half the coloured block of clay aside for later and I cut the remaining block in half again.

I then put slices of plain porcelain with slices of the coloured porcelain together.

And started the process of mixing them together all over again.Once I was happy with the colour ratio of navy blue to sky blue to white I made two pinch pots.

Notice the scoring on the top of the pots, that is to help the pots join together. I slapped some slip onto the scored edges of the pinch pots and stuck them together and shaped them into an egg shape. I made a small hole with a needle on the base of the egg so that the air can escape when the egg is being fired. Otherwise the egg will explode.

Tadaa, the first experimental Neriage porcelain dragon egg. I say experimental because I don’t know if the porcelain will hold its shape when I fire it or not. These eggs are about the size of a goose egg at the moment and they will shrink down to smaller than that once they are glazed and fired. If the porcelain eggs dont work properly I will just use white stoneware clay.

I have made some similar sized eggs using CRT, a lovely robust stoneware clay that I use to make my platters. These eggs have a twofold purpose, first and foremost I will use them as test pieces to see how the porcelain fires, see what glazes work, that sort of thing. But their secondary purpose and the one that will give me the most pleasure, is that I want to be able to give these away to anyone who wants one as a memento of the open day next February 2011.

I also need to make a hammock to keep the eggs in so that they don’t get a flat spot as they are drying out. These are in a nest of old towels inside one of my slump moulds in the middle of the lounge room floor, which is okay as a temporary measure but it makes things a bit squishy inside the house. I want to have about fifty of these smaller eggs ready on the day so I best jump off the computer and get making.

Yesterday was my last class with Dr Christl Berg. I cant remember the exact title of the class but in a nutshell Christl’s class was all about developing ourselves as artists as well as  learning to look at art critically. It was a valuable experience as we had lots of presentations from established artists describing their own art practices.

Our last presentation yesterday was from visual artist, Glen Dunn and I had a lightbulb moment during his presentation when Glen said,”That in essence, artists are thinking in public.” I realised that is what I am doing, I am thinking in public, I am having a public conversation with you. I know it looks glaringly obvious but I hadnt actually thought about it that way before. A couple of pieces of the puzzle clicked loudly into place yesterday and my mind is buzzing.

My proposal for the sculpture trail has been accepted by the friends of Chauncy Vale committee and I am really excited and terrified at the same time. Now I have to do more than actually think about making the eggs, I have to produce them. Eeek.

Just to add more excitement and terror to the mix, yesterday Glen also suggested that I should film the whole process. I was going to photo document everything  anyway but making a short film has captured my imagination. I have absolutely no idea how I am going to go about it at all but the thought of making a film is really exciting.

Now back to the idea of thinking in public. I hadn’t really thought much about the oil spill in the gulf of Mexico other than general, “gosh that’s awful”  type of thoughts until I followed a link on twitter to the Boston.com’s Big Picture, News stories in photographs and the images truly brought home to me the devastating impact of this massive environmental disaster.

The dragon eggs are a very public thought. The dead albatross bowls are very public thoughts. And now I want to make a couple of oily dragonfly plates. This dragonfly is trying to clean itself while it is perched on an oil soaked blade of grass. I cant get the idea out of my head that to the executives of companies like BP and Monsanto we are as worthless to them as insects.That the destruction of our environments dont matter as long as they get their fat paychecks and the shareholders get theirs.

How can BP compensate the world for the loss of a dragonfly? How much is a dragonfly worth?

Time is getting away from me. It is racing away at an alarmingly fast pace and it feels like there just aren’t enough hours in the day. I have been in touch with the trustees of the Chauncy Vale wildlife sanctuary and they are still very keen for me to make great piles of dragon eggs and leave them all about the place. I have asked a couple of other ceramic artists if they would like to display their work at Chauncy Vale next year and luckily for me they have agreed. Yay.

I have to write up a brief proposal before the committee meets later on this month, so that they have something on paper and then it is really time to get serious about making.

My initial idea was to slipcast the dragon eggs but I had a bit of trouble making the model. One clay model looked like a giant pod thing, another looked like a tic tac. I was finding it quite hard to get the shape that I wanted and the fact that it is absolute chaos in the studio at the moment wasn’t doing my head space any favours. I thought about casting a football and then modifying the mould to make it more egg like but it was just all too hard.

In the end I asked David for a condom and we filled that with plaster and then I gently shaped the wet plaster until I had an egg shape that I was happy with.

I am in two minds whether to leave the imperfections in the model or not. I am not sure. I think it adds character to the piece but whether I want fifty eggs with the identical marks is another matter totally.

Once I had overcome the initial hurdle of making a prototype egg everything started to fall into place. I dug out a bag of really gutsy, grogged clay and made two hand built eggs.

I made these by making two pinch pots and then joining them together and shaping them into an egg shape. I textured the eggs by rolling a rock over them and I have also pressed a piece of bracken fern into one egg as I am experimenting with trying to get a fossilized look. These two took about forty minutes each to make and I don’t think I will be able to make more than two or three at a time as my wrist was really aching afterwards. Now that I have made the first clay eggs the ideas are racing through my head and I feel like I have a bit of  forward momentum now.

On twitter yesterday I saw an interesting tweet talking about an Art Swap.So I clicked over for a bit of a look and the idea has captured my imagination. Here is the opening blurb on the web page.

Artists:

On Twitter, I am promoting an art swap as a way for artists to share with and collect from their peers.

As artists, we often appreciate other artists’ work, but do not actively collect.

This is a way for us to give to others and collect beautiful art at the same time.

This is a way to inspire others… to build our community worldwide… and encourage others to create.

I joined up immediately and here is the link to ART SWAP if any artists out there are interested.

So that is where I am at with the Dragon Eggs at the moment and as I was wandering around outside yesterday the ducks were following me hoping for a snack. This one was even smiling for the camera.