Last weekend I spent an amazing four days in Deloraine attending Woodfire Tas 2011. I met artists from all over Australia and overseas and my head is full of ideas. Someone also very kindly gave me a cold that has decided to settle in my chest so apologies in advance if this post is a bit rambly, as it is hard to keep a train of thought happening when I have to stop and reach for the tissues every five minutes.
I am trying to reflect on what I got out of the conference and to put it simply I received confirmation that I am on the right track. When I meet new people I am often a bit flippant and will fall back on terse one liners which often do not accurately represent me at all. By chance I was having lunch with one of the presenters at the conference and in passing I said I was too lazy to be a woodfirer, as the conversation progressed she commented that lazy wasn’t a word she would use to describe me and that I must stop using it.
I thought about her words for a bit and decided that she was right. I really need to banish those whispering ghosts once and for all.
My work is all about economy, economy of effort, economy of resource and most importantly, economy of time.
I have a strong sense of place here in the Tasmanian hills. I am influenced by my landscape, by drought, by early frosts, by the cold and by the heat. I need my work to reflect that sense of place.
When I am digging local clays to use in glazes I need these glazes to reflect where I am. There is no point using a clay gathered from a coastal region if I am trying to illustrate the tensions of living inland. Though it could be argued that Tasmania is so small that nowhere inland is far from the coast but that is a topic for another day.
Economy of time is of critical importance as often the ideas are fleeting and I need to make the piece all in one go. Grab the clay, make the pot, decorate the pot, put it aside and move on to the next piece.
Demonstrations and talks by Steve Williams and Graeme Wilkie helped to reinforce the ideas that had been swirling around in my head. Graeme Wilkie makes wonderful large work and he talked about working intuitively and finding the quiet space within yourself that allows the clay to direct the work.
Steve Williams says that, “To come back to a form when it has firmed and rekindle a relationship to turn and decorate is for me an ‘alien’ process”
I don’t like to come back to the work either and that is one of the reasons I have been thinking about the raw firing process, so that I only have to mess about with the pots once.
This is some of the beautiful work that was in one of the exhibitions, curated by Ben Richardson.
To finish here is another photo, I took when I was on top of Mount Wellington. I cant see the mountain from my home here in the Southern Midlands and I fretted for a long time. Even though I can see her when I drive down the hill, it isn’t the same as looking out of your window and watching her change through out the course of the day.
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