the swich

New stockist! The Swich Contemporary Art Space.

massive thank you to LeAnne for the gorgeous photos!

miami marketta | december 2011

homepage glory

Can you imagine how excited I was to see my work on the homepage of Artisan?

look for my emu feather work right in the centre!

Artisan is Queensland’s peak organization for presenting and promoting unique and individual quality crafted design.

Such a privilege, thank you Artisan!

mud colony

Determinedly producing more work before the Christmas holiday = eating breakfast* whilst trimming pots.

*breakfast = white quinoa, apple, blueberries, honey, cinnamon and pecans, mmm.

Run over to see more clay creativity: Mud Colony
(big thank you to Adriana for starting off this new blog!)

feather pendants in the shop!

Hand cut and painted porcelain lorikeet feather pendants, now available in the shop.

Free delivery continues through December - Monday 19 Dec is the last day to order for Christmas delivery.

miami marketta | december 2011

Tonight! Support your local artists + designers and BUY HANDMADE this Christmas!

> Facebook event

my (miro) creative space

Some progress on the Miro project;

glazed prototype - need to reduce the copper carb % to lighten the green

the first full scale set, plus extra pieces

umm...pac man dishes?!

More clever people over at our creative spaces and mud colony!

shop!

Ta da! My online store is open for 2 weeks only; buy some lovely handmade ceramic-y goodness for yourself and your loved ones this Christmas! To sweeten the deal, shipping is free within Australia, hurrah!

miami designer markets | november 2011

Last weekend I pitched my first stall at the Miami Designer Markets! Many thanks to the talented Sina of Ola Para Siempre for these beautiful photos - see more shots of the other stall holders over here on her blog!

my (dishy) creative space

Continuing on from last week's creative space, I've been painting bowls to match my new flat dishes.

I've had a few egg-related incidents this last week - one being accidentally stepping on a gecko egg on my studio floor :( I didn't even figure out what it was til 5 hours later and I was devastated! But the lady mother gecko living in the apartment must have returned, as I found this one in almost the same place on the floor of the studio yesterday! So tiny! (though yes, I KNOW, they are considered pests. Hush.)
More creative spaces over here and a new weekly meeting place for clay folk over here.

eggs

For weeks I've been aching for a new design. I love the lorikeet feathers, but I don't want to overdo them - I need to keep them special. Everything I thought of was too different, too unconnected. I want to keep some thread of correlation between all of my work. I wanted to extend the line, not abandon it.

Then I thought of the eggs. I've painted the feathers, then the birds, so it only makes sense to paint the eggs now. Completing the circle of life?

I also wanted to develop the feathers somewhat, make them softer and truer to the real form. I started with a soft grey wash, darkened around the feathers and eggs, then used a white underglaze for the egg with grey and blue shading and instead of black line work for the feathers I scratched a line into the clay and added the detailing in dark grey.

I can only hope that the colours behave themselves once glazed!

tent

I've bought myself a photography tent - I've still got a little way to go with optimizing my camera settings, but for a quick test I'm pretty darn pleased with the results:

my (egg) creative space

Inspiring me this week: sparkling blood orange, sunshine, jacaranda blossom and discovering a new (to me) potter.

[sketchbook]

[lorikeet nests?]

 

[plates/shallow dishes]

[sliiiightly larger bowls]

More creative spaces over here.

miami marketta | november 2011

orange!

After, oh 3 months or so, I've finally tested my new orange glaze on an actual pot!

And it's perfect, hurrah!

*Thanks to Jill for featuring a little interview about my work over here.

tiny porcelain pots

My first porcelain tests from a few weeks ago - clear glaze in and out.

circus girl

Another porcelain piece:

southern ice

Giddy doesn't quite cover the glee with which I unloaded the kiln last week - Southern Ice porcelain is my new obsession.

It was a dream to throw with - knowing the possibilities of translucency encouraged me to throw much, much finer than I normally would, a challenge that I relished. Of course, the finer the pot wall is, the harder it is to control, so whilst I had been thinking of altering the lips of pots for quite some time, it was convenient for this work as it disguises my rookie porcelain throwing skills! I roll glazed all of the pots, most in clear gloss, but a couple with yellow gloss.

I am beyond happy with these results - I am utterly in love with this clay.The translucency is intriguing, as it will allow me to progress with a project that has been cooking in my mind for 2 or so years; the surface, if properly sanded, is beautifully tactile; and of course the exquisite whiteness allows colours to mature to their best - for the first time since working with high temp clays, my red underglaze is BRIGHT red! My yellow glaze is positively mouth watering. Another exciting attribute for a maker like myself obsessed with underglaze decoration - fewer layers of colour is needed to achieve vibrant colours if the surface is not to be glazed. All of these factors create a more contemporary feeling around the work.

Unfortunately, all of porcelain's virtues make its poor cousin stoneware look somewhat ugly; the clay is grey to me now, giving colours a dull edge; even when sanded, the unglazed, vitrified body is not pleasant to the touch; and my existing work now feels heavy and clunky.

As with many new loves, this may not be a healthy obsession. Clayworks Southern Ice porcelain is approxiamately 2.5 times the cost of Walker's PB103 stoneware; a fact that one cannot possibly argue, as it was developed by Les Blakebrough himself, one of Australia's top ceramicists (though British born, like myself, mu ha!) and is now one of the finest commercial porcelain clays in the world.

Another concern I have with this organic work - the functionality. I always aim to make items that will be used. The world is full of more than enough useless junk already and I have no desire to add to that, especially as this medium is fairly un-environmentally friendly already. Certainly the work here is only experimental - initial exercises to test the capabilities and properties of the clay and the forms reflect that - small and varied in height and width. If I do follow this thread of undulating forms, I will have to carefully consider the function of the pieces. 

As an emerging ceramicist, I feel I don't yet have the skills or confidence to do this medium sufficient justice. I certainly won't give it up, but I have to set realistic targets; I will continue to produce my stoneware ranges, but slowly develop my work in porcelain until I feel a substantial body of work is a feasible project.

my (home work) creative space

If you don't already know, I grew up on the Isle of Man. It's an odd, tiny place. I spent most of my childhood playing in a national glen called Silverdale - my family has strong links to it, as my Grandfather owned much of the land from the 1930s - 60s. Over the years it has become affectionately known as 'The Children's Glen', with a boating lake, playgrounds, water driven carousel and ice cream shop, as well as the beautiful woodland walks along the Silverburn river. I think Silverdale is magic. Of all my childhood memories, the strongest are of Silverdale. Leaving it 4 years ago to travel was heart wrenching - as much as I love Australia and intend to stay here, I still feel that pull back to the glen. For various reasons, I've been thinking about home more than usual recently and it's crept into my sketchbook - and of course onto my pots.

This brainstorming is probably highly self indulgent, an expression of my homesickness, and likely won't progress much further than these experiments.

Using teeny pinch pots to test colours

Bluebells grown in abundance, as do daffodils at Spring time.

One of the key motifs I used was a sun, though it certainly rains more than anything else in that part of the world.

All of these pots are Southern Ice porcelain, so I will leave the exterior unglazed.

[goodness me, look at all that writing!]

More creative spaces over here.