Fantastic Firing

Opened the kiln today, the day before the Hand & Wheel show. Lo and behold it was a winner. The magic moment of opening the kiln was an aaaaaahhhh moment, and not a gut sinking ooooohhhh moment today. So I thought I would post some pictures....

A graceful old school shape with subtle colours and a splash of gold.






A blingtastic audacious little pot, a love it or hate it job I think, defiantly decadent, and I love it, a new avenue as opened here I think. I need to refine the glazing but generally well happy with this one!








This is a classic shape from my little family of shapes, with some new textured detail, and a bit of gold!





This one is a bit of a fail, it looks like it is dribbling and it lacks the right amount of texture and colour to balance the form...but I still like it, it's still part of the family, even if it is a bit weird!








All in all I am very pleased with this one!

Location:United Kingdom

Egg II

24th September 2012

Started today, I have spent over 3 hours on this one so far.

Building up the shape


Adding the textured surface, one piece at a time


Starting to take shape.

Egg I

17th September 2012
I have started to create Egg I while listening to the 'meditations of Marcus Aurelius' maybe some of his wisdom will be instilled in the pot!

19th September 2012
Closing the form...

Sculpting the shape...

After nearly 5 hours work, ready for the bisque.




The little dots are Earthenware slip, let's hope they survive the stoneware firing!




4th October 2012

Some pictures of the finished article. Now listed on Etsy for anyone thinking of making a ceramic purchase!

Slip Casting

17 & 18th Sept 2012
Experiments with slip casting..




Exploring the Egg shape which was born out of the bullet shape. Using slip casting and altering the forms to make each one unique.

Hans Coper

I found a quote from Hans Coper that rings true with me, it reminds me how I sometimes feel as a potter working in the 21st century. The quote is from a letter he sent to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London about his work.
'Practicing a craft with ambiguous reference to function one has to occasionally face absurdity. More than anything, like a demented piano tuner, one is trying to approximate a phantom pitch. One is apt to take refuge in principles which crumble'
It is that grey area that I often find myself in when people look at my work and say 'well I suppose you could put one flower in the top'. There is ingrained in the collective psyche the link between ceramic and function. It is that age old craft/art thing that has been rattling on for years.
Some ceramics is clearly art. Some ceramics is clearly utility based, others like mine sits on the fence somewhere in-between, neither here nor there. My work is built on Coper's 'principles which crumble'. But I can't help making what I make, it is as much a part of me as I am it. I cannot contrive to make things that i do not connect with. The pots I make flow easily from my mind, onto my sketch book pages before being realised in physical form. That is how I work, and it would be a lie to do anything else.
'Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need'
Gaston Bachelard