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.
Well I don’t think it’s fair if I win, but I’d love some dark blue mugs. You know the colour I like. With green frogs.
Please.
I wish for something that will inspire me! Something along the lines of rebirth, transformation. Can you tell I need a new me?
hi i’m new here, lured in by witchypoo and the hope of winning a contest.
i love coffee, i live for the stuff. i would wish for my own mug, a mug like no other so it could be just mine. not fancy, just mine.
i love cappuccino’s and latte’s.
and that’s pretty much me – i just like coffee.
I think you should make something that your mum would have just loved, pour a ton of love into it for her and for yourself, and then just give it away, release it to the universe. Then someone else a chance to share in the love you have for her.
I did that for a friend of mine with a painting–she lost her mum too. Its “reverent light” on my website- shannonphotography.ca
hugs
liz
I think it’s time for some new life. Spring is coming, think greens, tight buds unfurling, cocky little wrens in their courting plumage, eggs in nests, light – bright and alive!
Me, if I was the lucky one, I’d love a mug or a large soup bowl just for me and I’d promise I wouldn’t let hubby near it!
I like what Liz suggested. I was going to suggest similar to Aprillwinter, as I love coffee/tea and would love a special mug that I can sit down and hold comfortably in my hands between sips, thick in the middle to keep it warm but thin enough at the top to drink from. My favourite colour is spearmint green. I love flowers, bumble bees and ladybirds.
I am so bad at determining what it is that is MY style. I know what I like when I see it though and lately I have been drawn to pale turquoise blue and chocolate browns. I would love a coffee mug like that! I love me some coffee and lots of it!
Witchypoo tweeted about you and I followed her here.
Such a hard time to negotiate – losing my dad was the motivation for me to do my MFA and part of that was working at Tafe doing pottery as he was a potter. My vote would be for something that you can use in your ‘mum garden’ – like bird bath that draws life to it and lifts the spirits, or a beautifully glazed dish that catches the rain to create reflections of the trees and flowers in the garden. I create memory gardens as well – such a restoring way to keep memories with you.
Ooooh.
Mugs, big, uneven, dark blue, white trim.
Or like, whatever.
I didn’t comment on your last post because everytime I read “grief has stolen my words” I almost cried. But you posted a picture. A table with large platters/bowls. I love the large pale bowl on the right hand side. The shape seems so perfect somehow. I would love a dish like that, but not too big, maybe 6-8 inches across, in colours that would go with my living/dining room curtains and tablecloth. I could put it on the bookshelf just inside the door to toss my keys in as I come in from work. I’ll email you a picture of my colours.
I wish my mum had told me she had cancer before it was too late for her. We weren’t close, though, she probably thought she was sparing me.
You are right – life is too short – but not too short to be doing something you love, and something that makes so many people smile!
One of my best friends is terminal – a few years left – and no matter what we do now I know we are always going to wish we’d done more. I guess that’s what you have to live with.
Also, she loves black and white cows. So if I win something I would like it cow-inspired thanks.
Oh … umm! When one has to choose something out of ‘everything’ it becomes difficult! Will have to think (slow brain here!!) – we have a long weekend (Mon) is a holiday (Woman’s Day!!)- visitors for dinner tonight and our Colombian friends for a braai/bbq tomorrow. So will be thinking while I’m preparing meals!!!
So will be thinking of something small (easy to pack/send) and something from Tasmania (as I will never ever likely visit it!!) Earthy colours and yet pretty! Ummmmm .. !! a little bowl for salad stuff like olives maybe …
Cancer is such an awful disease. My father could have done so much more with his time, instead he spent his last days in hospital, chasing surgery.
I would love a big fruit bowl to hold all the beautiful Spring and Summer fruits that will be ripe for the eating soon.
I’m sure your Mum had favourite colours, the bowl would be really special in those.
Could you make a bowl? a platter? a vessel? Something that might hold all your words? Maybe then they will be free and ready to come out again??
Oo, a bendy person statuette type thing. Never let it be said I’m predictable or obvious 😉
Lots of love Kim, BG xx
oh Kim. The pain of losing a loved parent to cancer or any terminal illness is heartbreaking …watching the them endure treatment to ease pain or prolong a few more precious moments is also incredibly hard.
I am sorry.
Cancer it a bitch robbing far too many families in the most soul destroying ways.
I like some garden inspired colours or sky blue and white mugs …(I’d feel greedy to ask for more than 2.)
I’d give one to a very dear friend(who lives 2 hrs away) so every day I could have a virtual cuppa with her and feel connected…
Me too! Big, obviously-handmade coffee mug! I’m into the Australian green opal these days. Greens, flecks of pink, tiny shimmers of blue.
I love your pottery. If I were to win I think I’d love a mug. I’d leave the decision of colour to you.
I’ve been thinking about your tale of the not-so-good experiments with porcelain and it reminded me that I used to have a set of porcelain wind-chimes, they were white doves in flight. Looked to me as though they were cut from flat sheets of porcelain. Obviously I don’t know how easy it would be achieve but maybe some time down the track you could make something along those lines for ‘Mum’s Garden’. . . ?
So, does this mean you are scrapping the bums? I know you wanted a bum for a long time to work with.
Something I always wated to make out of clay was an incense holder. My cousin made a clay wizard sitting cross legged and there are holes in his back for incense sticks and his belly is hollow to burn incense cones inside and the smoke comes out of his hat. she also did the same with a dragon and the smoke comes out of his nostrils.
Your work is amazing. Thank you for sharing it with us. I would love a holy water font. No longing for anything special on it…just would be sacred to the purpose. Colour(s) up to you.
I’d still like a mug. 🙂
I love Thunder storms/heavy rain. The color of the sky when there is lighting is beautiful to me. Anything with that coloring would be lovely for me.
sorry about the typo, my keyboard is being weird I meant lightning not lighting.
I used to throw porcelain and always said that I wanted to be cremated and to use my ashes as a glaze for a nearly translucent porcelain bowl – this may not appeal to everyone – but I know there are potters who feel this way – but the japanese and chinese master potters put blood into their glazes – the iron would look lovely in reduction….butchers might supply blood – or maybe you could just borrow some from XXXX the vulture down the road…
Seems to me Kim from the things you and Ronnie have said that your mum had a very central role in your family. That she was a mediator and a refuge and a source of comfort for all and someone who found joy where ever she was.
I think you should make a sculpture for the garden, something that you can put in your garden and remember her by when you see it. Something that would have bought a smile to your mum’s face had she seen it in her garden.
I want something kewl with real wallaby footprints and echidna prickle impressions! Something authentically Australian! With tree bark, but not too political. No butt-prints, please, unless they belong to Kanga. LOL 😛
I’m currently trying to get a job on the other side of the world, so am spending a lot of time thinking about what it means to me to be Australian.
So I’d like something – a platter or bowl perhaps – to remind me of where my heart will always call home. For me it’s the gum-coloured mountains, and the mist and the bright red chests of our flame robins (which are so much nicer than the boring brown ones that Europeans rave about!).
My daughter just got braces. Her mouth is sore and she is grumpy. She loves those dreaded ramen noodle thingy’s and a bowl or noodle cup just for her would really make her day….in bright tye-dye colours!
Your pottery is beautiful. You have a wonderful talent!
just linked over from today’s post… that guy XXXX is an ass! And you were doing so well before he showed up! Send him my way – to the tall redhead who is pissed at him… he won’t bother you anymore! Please, smile and remember how much your mom wants you to be happy… I do that when I start missing my dad too much – he always said that he wanted me to be happy, so I smile for him and I smile that he was my dad and gave me so much of himself.
I don’t actually need another 7 foot tall sculpture of the Goddess but the bums morphed into big bugs sound fun!
What a lovely idea. I think, if I could have anything made from the hands of Kim, I’d choose a mug big enough for a soothing cup of tea. With a bonus saucer for the tea bag? 😉
Ooh, I think dragonflies. Or something equally fluttery. I do agree with nearly everyone else, I bet you give good mug.
Congratulations on the 100 readers – that’s brilliant and I’m surprised you haven’t got more. Maybe they just don’t subscribe?
well considering I am still waiting for the poo cups, I don’t want any more of those.
How about an awesome money box for my shoe fund?
I think I would like anything you would like to make for me!!
If it was me – I’d love a windchime. I LOVE windchimes – there’s a little soul out there who speaks to me through windchimes.
it breaks my heart reading about your mom. mine died, also of cancer, several months ago. it so totally sucks.
Having lost my mother to cancer four years ago, if I won I would want something that symbolizes all the days of my mother’s life without fixating on the one measly day she died. She loved yellow roses and collected hundreds of elephant figurines. Maybe a glass or vase with yellow elephants running around the bottom with their tails and trunks linked together signifying how even though we all may never meet – we are all joined by this common bond of cancer.
Hiya Kim!
How about a blessing? Of any sort! 🙂
*hugs to you* from clear over here.
I am blown away by the beautiful descriptions of what people would find meaningful in pottery. Wow!
I’d love blue pitcher. I’m going through chemo myself right now and often imagine water from a pitcher when the going gets too rough.
Hmmm…I would love whatever you make. I am also very willing to wait for months and months and months…especially since I am the master of the 3/4 finished job!
I have already won. And you know how I feel about give aways. Bu I saw there were 44 comments,and I just wanted to be nr 45. Just ’cause. (((hugs)))
I lost my mother to that dreaded disease when I was 17. Blogging didn’t exist back then. I wish it had. So much support from so many people!
You are the inspiration.
If I don’t win, I would love Pam to win! Go random number generator.
I was lured here from Veronica’s blog but I have visited yours before. I live very far so I was thinking of something small, perhaps a talisman with your favourite inspirational saying or word. Something that you can carry about and smooth over and over in your palm?
It’s true that grief and cancer can steal from the soul. But only for a time, we can overcome those things. I lost my father and nephew to cancer within a year of each other and those times have been the worst ever, the grief, the loss, the pain.
Maybe the inspiration is can be something life affirming, something bold and brilliant that celebrates the resiliance of love and soul, that cannot be completely quelled by bad things.
There is something about bloggers – I’ve always found much support from my blogging friends. To prove it, you now have 50 comments!