Diabolical Clay

My studio as many of you know, is a large tin shed. It is a wonderfully chaotic place that is all mine and I adore having the space and the freedom to make as much mess as I like.

I normally let my studio get to the point where every single surface is covered with something important, like rocks, empty tim tam packets and last weeks newspapers. As I surround myself with all these very useful and necessary things my working space shrinks and I find I am working in a tiny space six inches by six inches wide.

Once the creative cycle of chaos is complete and the kiln has been packed for the final glaze firing, I look at the disaster zone and run away to the house and faff about on the computer or in the garden. Anything will do as a distraction from having to clean the studio. I offer to accompany my husband on a fishing trip or suggest we go out to lunch, sometimes I even fly interstate to visit friends.

Anything will do as long as I DO NOT HAVE TO CLEAN UP AFTER MYSELF.

BUT sadly I am too poor to be able to afford minions or a cleaner. Once the kiln has cooled down enough to be unpacked, I find I need some space to array all my wares so I can admire the fruits of my labour and I am forced to clean. All by myself.

This is about as tidy and organised as my studio ever gets and sometimes this level of clean can last for as long as a whole week.

So dear internets, keeping this idea of chaos firmly to the forefront of your mind, can you imagine the look of absolute horror that crossed my husbands face when I asked him to help me move a trestle table into the house?

And not just any old hidden part of the house. Oh no, I needed to move a trestle table into my kitchen.

I can hear you asking why I needed a trestle table in my kitchen.

We had a balmy start to winter this year, climate change is really working its magic down here in Tasmania. Autumn was sunny and mild and so lulled into a false sense of security by a string of 18 degree days I blithely worked on, making large pots and having a tremendous amount of fun. I flung clay around the place with gay abandon, I made a glorious mess, I was happy until…

Until winter hit with a furious icy blast.

We had a string of days that started with ridiculous temperatures of minus six that slowly crept up to 3 degrees max.

WE HAD SNOW.

(not this much snow, this is last years snow but you get the general idea dear internets, it was bloody cold)

After about a week of playing candy crush saga and whining loudly about the freezing weather I decided that direct action was needed and so I informed The Spouse of my decision. Once he stopped rolling his eyes and giving me that look, Jeff helped me set up the trestle table in the middle of my warm, warm kitchen.

The large work that I am making is on hold as it is just too cold for my arthritic hand and even though I appreciate the sentiment “suffer for my art” I am not at the stage of having lived with my arthritic wrist for long enough to be able to ignore the pain the cold causes.

I played around with the video function on my phone as I was decorating this piece and I shall upload a short 30 second video once I have finished editing it.

The large work is in the cold, cold, COLD studio slowly drying and I am down in the warm, warm, WARM house faffing about on twitter and facebook at the same time as I am making small things and drinking cups of tea in comfort.

A public conversation with The Koori Woman on twitter had me making ceramic skull beads in lieu of voodoo dolls for her. The Koori Woman had written about her anger with Tony Abbott declaring himself to be The Aboriginal Prime Minister,  I made her some Abbott voodoo skulls using Southern Ice porcelain so they would be blindingly white and I gave them red eyes as a hat tip to Tony’s speedos. Who says faffing about on the internet at work is unproductive?

My grandchildren came to visit and were delighted to see CLAY in THE HOUSE NANNY, there is CLAY IN THE HOUSE. There was much joyful shouting interspersed with happy making of masterpieces.

In the photo above, the grubby clay marks on my grand daughter Amy’s jumper, makes me smile so much as it is the exact spot I get grubby when I am working.

And that is a  very condensed recap of my wintery ceramic journey.

I am linking up with this week the ever gorgeous Adriana Christianson for the Mud Colony Blog Link up

How are you going this winter? Are you cold? Does your husband roll his eyes at you at the same time as he reluctantly enables you to make a giant mess?

When cartoonist Jon Kudelka started the #ruddmentum hashtag on twitter in response to the never ending ALP leadership speculation. I thought it was pretty funny, but sadly #ruddmentum soon developed a life of its own as it was picked up by the mainstream; by the trolls in #auspol; by everyone that disliked Julia Gillard.

This sculpture by Jon Kudelka, part of the Art From Trash show, now in the Long Gallery, is also pretty funny.

But today it doesn’t seem that humourous at all. Today the Rudd Sculpture with its butter knife in the back of its head just makes me feel sad for my country. Today I mourn the loss of Julia Gillard, I mourn the loss of our first female Prime Minister and I will always be grateful to Ms Gillard for opening my eyes to the truly horrendous levels of misogyny in Australia.

There will be thousands of words written today about Julia Gillard and I will leave you with this extract from Van Badham’s article in The Telegraph

The message sent to Australian women is a cruel one. The message is that achievement does not equal respect if you’re a woman – that sexism does not become less as you ascend the slippery pole of power, but intensifies. That if you call out the misogyny for what it is – as Gillard did – you’ll be belittled again, for using what your critics call “the gender card” and what every woman knows is the goddamn truth.

In the face of our first female Prime Minister’s vile treatment and viler end, one could forgive Australian women for rolling over and giving up, and finding a nice, soft place to wait out life and die.

When I talk about my Skull beads in public, I very quickly get into character and I say in a theatrical stage whisper, “These skull beads are made using plastic pollution that has been retrieved from the bellies of DEAD ALBATROSS.”

I channel my inner pirate and wave my arms about a bit, my audience then takes a second or two to check that I am telling the truth. I nod enthusiastically at them and promise it is a true story and then the proper conversation really begins.

My scientist friend Dr Jennifer Lavers ,has this to say on her web page:

For years we’ve heard about the North Pacific Gyre (or Garbage Patch) where there is up to six times more plastic in the ocean than plankton. We’ve seen tragic photos of thousands of Endangered Laysan Albatross chicks that have died as a result of ingesting plastic on remote islands in Hawaii. And have watched eminent speakers like Captain Charles Moore speak to captivated audiences about our plastic addiction.

  What most people don’t realize is that the North Pacific Garbage Patch is not the only one of its kind. There are at least five others, fed by more than 20 million items that enter the world’s oceans each and every day (~6.4 million tonnes of plastic per year). The wind and wave patterns that lead to the development of Gyres (some with more than 26,000 pieces of plastic per km²⁾ redistribute this plastic around the globe, so that one country’s garbage washes up in anothers backyard. Its time to reconsider the infamous quote “Garbage Patch the size of Texas” and start thinking outside the box. Unlike Texas, ocean basins do not have boundaries. Our garbage is everywhere. Even in Antarctica.

Dr Lavers gives me bags of plastic pollution that she has removed from the bellies of dead albatross and I use them to make the marks in my work.

The eyes of these skull beads are made by pressing the spinny wheel thing of this cigarette lighter into the clay. The mouths are made by using either the balloon clip or the back of the lighter.

When people think about the scale of the plastic pollution disaster happening in the world’s oceans today, they think that the problem is too big, that nothing can be done by one person.

Heaps can be done by one person. I am one person sitting here banging away at my computer talking about pollution and you are one person reading my words. Together we can save the world, you and I. Easy Peasy.

Just think of one item of plastic that you personally can remove from the garbage chain and stop buying it. Say no to one item of plastic. I say no to plastic water bottles.

Don’t let people tell you that your actions do not have any affect on the pollution problem, because your actions do count.

They count rather a lot.

And if you would like one of these skull beads all you have to do is send me a stamped self addressed padded envelope and I will send you a skull bead.

Recently I posted a photo of my cleavage to twitter.  

I know, shock horror, old lady cleavage.

What was I thinking?

Dr Jennifer Wilson from No Place for Sheep had decided that a frivolous avalanche of cleavage was the proper response to Collier’s assertion that our PM, Julia Gillard, displayed too much flesh in parliament. Collier declared publicly that in her professional opinion, cleavage was inappropriate in the work place.

I find it ridiculous that the PM’s cleavage is being discussed at all but as Dr Wilson went on to say in her blog post

However, it appears that almost every one of Ms Gillard’s physical characteristics have been fair game for the loons. Please feel free to tweet images of your fingernails,your ear lobes, your hair, your glasses, your jackets, or, if you feel like it, your arse. Do use the same hash tag, in the interests of order.

Dr Wilson also warned that :

 … this exercise is entirely frivolous and will achieve nothing. Yes, I expect we will be gored by Helen Razer (after Baudrillard) for our mindless capitulation to empty symbolism.

With the idea of mindless capitulation and empty symbolism firmly in mind, I tweeted my image and joined in the light hearted protest. I wasn’t the only woman on twitter to find Collier’s position ridiculous and hundreds of women along with some men, posted images of their cleavage and other body parts to twitter, with the hashtag #convoyofcleavage. There was much hilarity to be had with humorous tweeps posting photos of their knitting instead of cleavage, there were plumbers cracks to be seen and even Piccinini’s Sky Whale made an appearance.  I walked away feeling that I had been a part of a gentle piss take aimed at the gender police.

Destroy the Joint made a montage of images and as far as I was concerned that was that.

Except it wasn’t.

A friend showed me a vitriolic stream of abuse aimed at all the women who had dared flash a bit of boob.

The abuse carried on in that vein for quite some time. I started off just rolling my eyes as I read the tweets, but the more I thought about the abuse, the more I began to take it personally, until I started stomping around the house angrily muttering to myself about oppression.

I have deliberately erased the author’s name as this article is NOT really about her though her tweets were the catalyst.

This article is about the silencing of women.

I know that a number of my peers will not talk about feminism publicly because they are afraid of being mocked and humiliated for their views. It is the same with politics, current affairs, even food. It seems to me that there are some vocal inhabitants of the online space who loudly trumpet, that if you do not have a triple degree you are not allowed to discuss anything at all.

I am 47 years old and it seems like all my life, someone has been trying to shut me up.

My father tried to beat silence into me. The nuns tried to shame me into silence and now high profile women are trying to use ridicule and abuse to silence me again.

I am tired of it.

And I will publicly exhort you who are reading these words of mine, DO NOT BE SILENCED.

Do not allow yourselves to be silenced by those vociferous voices on twitter, or in the many public forums online.

Do not listen to the naysayers,telling you that you are wrong or stupid or that it can’t be done or that you are doing it wrong.

Just do what ever you want to do and ignore everything else except for the beating of your own heart and the taste of your own passion as it drives you forward to be anything you want, do anything you want, believe anything you want.

Without fear or favour.

Life is too short for small thoughts.

Today I am writing about sexism over at The Shake

I think I have raised some interesting points and would be interested to hear your thoughts.

The Standard you walk past is the standard you accept.

Sadly, Dear Internets, this blog has become a bit neglected. Not from any lack of interest or lack of words but because of lack of time.

Poor sad neglected Frog Ponds Rock.

I have had some cracking ceramic deadlines that have had me chewing my fingernails in frustration at the time it took the pots to dry out enough to be fired. The pots are now in the hands of Australia Post and I will publish proper photos once their new owner has seen them. But here is a sneak peek.

Plans for World Domination seem to be on track with my chairing of a very successful and productive third meeting for the National Ceramics Conference, The Tasmanian Triennlae 2018. We now have a name and a date and will soon have a logo as well.

Somehow I have managed to be elevated to the lofty position of Art Director at The Shake and this challenging position is also helping to keep me away from this blog as I only have a limited amount of creative juice and The Shake is getting first squeeze.

If you know of any photographers, amateur or professional that would like to submit photographs to be used at The Shake I would be more than happy to talk with them about our needs.

It is June and I find myself sliding down into a patch of dark grief. Yesterday was a pretty shit day and I spent the morning reading my mum’s diary and crying. Surprisingly enough being called  sexist  and racist on twitter cheered me up as that gave me something tangible to focus my negative energy onto and so silver linings internet, silver linings.

Today I fly out to Melbourne to embark upon another ceramic adventure with my Mud Colony Girls as we head to the wilds of Inverloch for a weekend of Open Ceramic Studios, food and wine, mostly FOOD.

I am missing you a bit my lovelies so here is a nice photo of a summer sunset to make up for my terrible neglect.

Julie and Sissy are at it again, Long time readers here will remember Julie and Sissy from last years world record attempt and fundraiser for the clown doctors.

This time around the girls are trying to make their little sister smile. Willow has a host of medical issues and life is one long giant blur of  emergency trips to the hospital interspersed with lots of intensive therapy.

Normally I would just share this on facebook but I know that quite a few of you, my dearest ineternets do not have facebook accounts and so I have written this post for you.

This is what the girls have to say in their own words.

These two young girls never fail to impress me and If it is in my power to help them in some small way I just have to try. When all is doom and gloom in the media and all you hear are negative stories about young people it is a delight and an honour for me to be able to support these girls, Julie and Sissy in their community adventures.

If you have facebook you can click through to Willow’s page to read more.

Willows Organic Oasis

Or  you can simply send a card to:

Willow
C/O Warrane Newsagency
14 Edgeworth street
Warrane, Tasmania, 7018
Australia

Thanks heaps in advance.

Hark! The happy wanderer returns! Tired and weary from all her travels but refreshed in mind and spirit. Yay.

Do you think that opening sentence might win the award for most overblown opening sentence in the history of the world? Or will that previous one, pip it at the post and win the award for most exaggerated?

Anyway I am home and I have photos from my time away.

Gulgong is an old gold rush town and is about 300 kilometres inland from Sydney. X amount of years ago Janet Mansfield, the undisputed queen of Australian Ceramics decided that she wanted a ceramics conference in her town. I have only met Janet the once and I was too overawed to say much more than hello, but from the stories that were told about her whilst I was in Gulgong I know that I would have enjoyed having a proper chat with her.

The whole town welcomes the visiting tumble of potters and there are signs outside the local shops and pubs proclaiming Potters Welcome, which is always nice to see. The country around the town is very similar to my familiar dry country here in Tassie, as is the architecture and the comfort of the distant hills made the experience less discombobulating than the spooky flatness of the canola country in South Australia.

The town of Gulgong deserves a photo essay all on its own but for today I will concentrate on some of the pots and potters. Most of the action was at the Red Hill Environment Centre and there were also potters demonstrating in the classrooms, the giant marquee and the scout hall.

In the Marquee there were tables set up for delegates to sell their work.

There was a strong emphasis on woodfired pots as Janet Mansfield was a woodfirer and this made me happy, as I adore all things woodfired, including food, but there were also lots of brightly coloured pots fired in electric kilns. I love these cups and regret not buying one.

Interesting skulls next to delicate little patchwork bowls. The skulls were too heavy for my suitcase and so I just photographed them.

At one end of the marquee,  Frank Boyden demonstrated his throwing and painting techniques and freely shared his life’s wisadom and philosophy. Frank has an alter ego called Uncle Skulky who gets Frank into a bit of trouble, Frank and I had an interesting chat about Princess Snorklepants and it was fun to compare the mischief our alter egos sometimes got us into.

This is one of Frank Boyden’s wonderful platters that was on display in the Master’s Exhibition. Frank lives on the coast of Oregon and he talked a lot about the giant salmon in the rivers when he was a boy.

At the other end of the giant marquee was Korean Master, Lee, Kang Hyo, who along with the assistance of his daughter and a NAS student made two GIANT pots using a coil building technique. Here he is making the base of the pot, using one of Kirk Winter’s lovely kick wheels.

Lee Kang Hyo’s daughter and the NAS student assistant made all the coils for the pot, it was interesting watching his daughter make coils using a technique very similar to stretching noodles.

There are lots of different ways to make coils, you can roll them out on the table, like a child makes play doh snakes or you can use an extruder to force out long sausages of clay.I cut long strips of clay from the block and just sort of scrinch the clay into a rough sausage shape. The Korean technique that Lee Kang Hyo’s daughter  demonstrated was very gentle to the clay and I might give it a go and see what happens.

As there were other Master’s demonstrating at the same time I wandered off to listen to Frank Boyden talk for a while and when I came back the pot had started to grow. A wire cage thing was filled with coal and used as a heat source to speed up the drying process of the clay, if you build a pot too fast it will collapse. As a Tasmanian I was fascinated by the coal. I had never seen coal before in my life and it just smelled smoky like firewood as it slowly burned away.

Lee Kang Hyo positions the coal burner inside the pot to help with drying.

Here is the finished pot. My days at Gulgong have all blurred into one giant memory and so I can’t remember if this was built in two days or over the course of three days.

Now the pot is complete the real fun begins, a car was backed up to the Marquee, a computer was hooked up to the cars sound system and to the accompaniment of traditional Korean music, with lots of drumming, Lee Kang Hyo began his performance art. He politely warned the audience that they might get splattered with slip and then he started throwing buckets of slip at his pot. It was wonderful.

On our final day at Gulgong Yuri Wiedenhofer with the help of many enthusiastic potters wrapped the pot with muddy coils and we had a lovely fire sculpture to finish out time at Gulgong.In my next post I will share all the wonderful gems of knowledge I picked up from listening to Greg Daly demonstrate.

Hi guys, Veronica here.

I said I’d publish a link when Mum’s article at The Shake was live, and so here it is.

Click to read Write like no one is reading.