I have been experimenting with porcelain lately. Porcelain has a lovely transluscent quality and porcelain pieces, done well, have a subtle glow about them.
It is also bastard stuff to work with. It rips, it collapses, it shatters if you breathe too loudly and then once you have finally gotten it into the kiln it warps and distorts.Gah.
I have decided that porcelain is far too temperamental for me at this stage in my life.It just doesn’t do anything for me artisitically, other than mess with my head. I need simple things at the moment. I need things to work as they are supposed to, with a minimum of fuss.
The last few months of Mum’s life were a whirlwind blur of doctors appointments,scans, radiation and all the minutae assosciated with cancer treatments. Nothing was simple or straightforward. Cancer is messy and awful and unpredictable.
Cancer also causes pain. Lots and lots of pain.
Friday 4th June (from Mum’s diary)
Ok this was the worst morning, reduced me to tears trying to get out of bed but I finally made it…
Looking back it really seems such a shame that we wasted so much time. We lived from scan to scan. There were four weeks in April/May when Mum was feeling really good and she was almost pain free.We wasted those four weeks, waiting about for doctors and having the bone mets in her spine zapped. With the benefit of hindsight we should have just taken off to Sydney then and had all the useless treatments after Mum had done everything that she wanted.
Caring for someone with a terminal illness is very difficult. It puts things into perspective and skews your way of thinking. I would have walked barefoot, through the fires of hell if I thought that it would help my Mother. But in the end nothing helped my Mum and I am here, bereft.
So life is far too short to be messing about playing with temperamental clay. Time is too precious to waste fiddling and faffing about with pretty clay that will just break your heart when you get it out of the kiln.
I need some inspiration.
The last time I needed inspiration I had a giveaway. A giveaway that my friend Jientje, from Heaven is in Belgium won (yay). When I had my last giveaway Jientje said that she would love something inspired by my photographs of the Tasmanian summer sky. That comment of hers then inspired my ‘skydancer’ series of tall cups.
So now it is up to you my dear internetz. Inspire me. Leave me a comment telling me about something that you would like me to make for you. And I will try to make it. Bearing in mind that it will have to be posted to you so it cant really be a seven foot tall sculpture of the Goddess, or a 42 piece dinner setting for seven.
I will then use the random number thingy to pick a winner.
I have just reached 100 readers (woot) So this is also a chance for my readers that don’t normally comment to click over and leave me a comment. (pretty please)
Everyone and anyone is welcome to enter.You could be from Tasmania or Timbuktoo, I don’t mind. You could be a friend, a stranger, a relative of mine or even a colleague.You just need to be prepared to wait a bit for your prize. Petra waited 11 months and 29 days for her platter. Jientje won her cups in February and I will post them off to her in about two weeks time.
So come on my lovelies, help me to dream about clay again. This giveaway will be open for one week from today. I will announce the winner next Sunday, the 16th of August.
*edited to add You can comment more than once if you like, you can come back and comment every day for the week if you like. With a maximum of seven comments per person seeming fair enough.
**Comments are now closed. Good Luck to everyone and thankyou very much for making me smile.
Comments on this entry are closed.