chai lattes and late nights

The last week of making for Ebb Tide.

[the final pots to paint]

[soy chai lattes sustain me]

[darling Michaela allowed me to use her kiln!]

[12.25am on Wednesday morning: the painting is DONE!]

 Hello Thursday! Let's visit Mud Colony shall we?!

silverdale / sydney

I am very proud to announce my first Sydney stockist: Follow Store in Surry Hills! 

Follow is a new design concept store nestled away in a beautiful heritage listed shop, founded by the clever duo behind the Finders Keepers Markets!

Oh look, there's some Silverdale Dreams porcelain cups on their blog and online store! Ooh!

Thanks to Brooke of Follow Store for welcoming me and thanks to Kim of Udessi for exposing my work to new people at Finders Keepers!

treats.

Treats! Big thank you to Keane Ceramics for their generous sponsorship in the Port Hacking Potters 47th National Competition!

beginning ebb tide

S A V E   T H E   D A T E !

Saturday 2 March 2013 from 3.30pm:

The official opening of 'Ebb Tide', an exhibition of new work by Megan Puls and myself at Clay Art Benowa, Gold Coast.

For this exhibition, I will be creating a new body work; wheel thrown and hand painted vessels in Southern Ice porcelain. It begins here:

[2 hearts]

[a happy artist]

[follow the heart lines on your hand]

megan puls

Megan Puls is, in the eyes of many, one of the best ceramicists in Australia. She pushes her materials and so often wins; the technical challenges that she sets herself astound me. We're privileged to call her a local Gold Coast artist and very fortunate indeed to have her as a dedicated member of and teacher at the Gold Coast Potters Association. Currently she is throwing Southern Ice porcelain and red raku clay together and piercing the porcelain, to create works like this:

 Megan is also developing this gorgeous range of soup bowls, plates and spoons (look at those spoons!)

[*jaw drop*]

pierced forms waiting to be sanded

Her range of work is certainly diverse - these exquisite sculptural porcelain arrangements blow my mind. Parts of this must be 50 cm long and no more than half a centimetre thick!

My excuse for stalking Megan's studio today: we're planning an exhibition together. I thought she was joking at first, but Megan seems to have complete faith in me to produce a new body of work suitable to exhibit alongside hers. Her absolute confidence in me actually makes me shake a little. Quite seriously, I could barely write notes this afternoon!
Apart from this being a huge honour - how many young ceramicists get such an opportunity? - I'm excited to have a reason and the motivation to produce a whole new body of work; and in porcelain too.
Stay tuned for 'Ebb Tide' in March 2013.

I recommend:
Megan's lovely website and very active Pinterest.

cups sneak peak.

First finished batch of the porcelain cups are looking GOOD! Even if I do say so myself...

[p.s. follow me on Instagram: @katyintheclouds]

stacked.

All 58 of those porcelain cups are painted and ready to glaze!

grumble.

I've only been wheel throwing for 3 years. The first year was horrible; I cried nearly everything I made something and had to bully myself into persevering because I knew I loved the end result and I wanted to improve. I'm glad I did stubbornly continue, as I can now produce work that I'm rather proud of (if only quietly, so as not to jinx myself.). I'm at the stage now that I can do a day of repetition throwing and produce anywhere from 4 to 20 pieces, almost at identical sizes (albeit in limited forms).

However, today I felt like a complete newbie all over again and it stung. Foolishly (oh so foolish!), I purchased a bag of SOFT porcelain last week, thinking it would be easier to work with. Nu uh. Difficult to centre, way too sensitive to moderate pressure and very questionable structure. Out of 11 attempts, 3 completely failed, 2 are cracking due to the awful shape, 1 is wonky and 5 *might* be ok.
AND there is very little skin left on my fingers, due to spending 3 times as long centering the damned clay.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that soft clay of any kind does not make good cups. Where was that logic at the pottery supply store?

Hopefully my fingers will heal enough overnight and allow me to return to trusty stoneware tomorrow to make some cups for ANOTHER project, linked to the Miro dishes.

[*Please note: I don't cry when I wheel throw anymore; I've learnt to take deep breaths and tell myself that I learn from every piece I make, even if I screw it up.]

cups x lots

Porcelain cups, cups and cups.

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.

harlequin

Painting some of this week's wheel thrown porcelain.

my (porcelain) creative space

This week: throwing thin pots with Southern Ice Porcelain and experimenting with the forms.

More creative spaces here.