A little bit spice

Jiansheng Li is one of the speakers at the Australian Ceramics Triennale. I have seen Jiangsheng speak a couple of times and he is an inspiring, poetic and powerful speaker. Jiangsheng is the founder of the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute in Jingdezhen , China.

I have seen quite a few artists speak over the years but Jackson Li was one of the ones that has stayed with me and genuinely influences my day to day work in the studio. I can't quite put my finger on why I loved his talks and demonstrations so much. Was it his story of travelling back from Canada to his hometown in China? The affection and connection Jackson Li feels for "his place"? Was it Jackson Li's preoccupation with finding good food in a small Australian town?
(a preoccupation I share) The first time I spoke to Jackson Li was when the bus carrying us further and further west for the conference stopped at a Macdonald's for lunch.. A large protesting groan went up among the potters but most people stayed at Fast Food Hell and made do. Jackson and I set off towards the town. After walking VERY fast for a couple of kilometres we came to a greasy spoon and before I could warn him Jackson Li ordered a Dim Sim! Delicious if you are eating them straight from the vendors cart in China absolutely horrible deep fried in five day old fat beyond the Black Stump!

Jackson Li gave me one of the nicest compliments on my work I have ever received which also contains some advice I try to follow.
"Shannon your work is just like you very sweet but a little bit spice" A little spice can make all the difference.

Here is an introduction to the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute.

"Sanbao began as a dream of Jackson Li of Jingdezhen and Wayne Higby of Alfred University, USA back in the mid-1990's. They envisioned an international ceramic art center located in China, that would provide the opportunity to the international arts and crafts community to explore and exchange the culture, arts and crafts of China.

The concept of a first international ceramic art center in China led to the search for a suitable site on the outskirts of Jingdezhen, long the world center of porcelain production and the origin of the best porcelain artifacts in history.

The Sanbao Valley had for countless centuries been the source of China stone for the studios of Jingdezhen and was dotted with numerous old water-powered hammer mills for crushing the stone. A group of farm houses and an adobe building were chosen as the site for the future art center."
From the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute Website.


Jiangsheng Li (also known as Jackson Li) is also a renowned brush maker and will be doing a brushmaking demonstration at the Triennale. I have one of Jackson's brushes and the quality of the line it produces would make any ceramic decorator swoon. These brushes are just a small sample of the wonderful brushes for sale on the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute website.




Opening

On Friday the 17th of July there will be a screening of the international award winning film titled 'Potter and Dragon Kiln Village' by Jiansheng Li (Jackson Li)at COFA

(COFA is an easy 5 minute walk from the National Art School)

There's something human about that garlic!- the paintings of Wendy Van der Drift

Wendy Van der Drift posts a painting a day on her blog "Painting Daily" Her beautiful paintings reference old masters and dutch still life painting.
What I like is that her composition and subject matter is modern and humorous. There's something human about that garlic!

Throwing pots- in a few easy steps!

Gone Swimmin'

We've been away for a week at Stradbroke Island.
There are hardly any shops on Stradbroke but Oceanic Gelati is the shop to end all shops. It is a little gelati shop sitting on the very point of Point Lookout. every day they make new flavours.
I had baklava with pale pink Turkish Delight gelato on my first day....several others in between and icy white zingy lemon gelato with homemade orange and almond cake on my last day.

Oceanic Gelati is a gelati flavoured cafe, from the tropical print dresses the shop assistants wear, to the sherbet coloured curtains and chairs.
One morning we interrupted the owner as she stood behind the counter with her binoculars looking at this....

watching for whales.

Ceramic Jouneys

I have some work in an exhibition called "Ceramic Journeys" at Fusions in Brisbane. This is an exhibition celebrating the past and present students of Southbank Tafe.

After completing a Bachelor of Visual Art at QUT (the "university for the real world!") I was feeling shell- shocked and uninspired. The only thing I loved doing was decorating Clairy Lawerence's beautiful pots for her gallery Amfora. It was Clairy's mother Kitty when teaching me to wedge clay who said "Why don't you just enroll at Southbank Tafe?"

Southbank Tafe was a revelation, finally here was a place with a collegial atmosphere, practical people talking in an inspired way about pots, glazes, clay and colour. I truly fell in love with this place about three weeks in. At the end of the day a group of potters were opening the wood kiln, someone had bought along HOMEMADE CAKE!!! What a place! We all unpacked crusty wood fired pots and ate cake.
This is what making things should really be about, there was a sense of shared purpose and community that was missing in the quasi-intellectual halls of the BAVA.

Many teachers at Southbank inspired and encouraged me. Scott Avery with his emphasis on drawing and the discipline of the two-dimensional, Ray Cavill flattening huge lumps of clay and turning them into gorgeous platters (he taught me how to cone- wedge), and Ronelle Clark who curated "Ceramic Journeys" and showed me how to make teapots. The tools and encouragement these people gave have enabled me to be where I am today.
Thank you.

How to...... Get a Blog Started for Artists

beautiful fabric from Melbourne company Ink and Spindle

Here is another entry for those who want to enter the blogosphere. The first thing I would say is...IT IS NOT NECCESSARY TO WRITE YOUR OWN BLOG TO BE SUCCESSFUL ON THE INTERNET. You should only start a blog if you are interested in either writing or photography and you intend to keep posting regularly. A blog with infrequent, poor or boring content will not do you any favours.

You can successfully be part of the blogosphere by posting comments on others blogs and sending photos and press releases to other, established bloggers. The only thing I'd add about this strategy is that in sending someone photos and information you are actually asking them a favour, introducing yourself in a polite and respectful way is essential. I sometimes get -emails along the lines of "I am a Canadian ceramicist would you put my work on your blog?" Well......no.
Working with e-mail is like meeting people in real life. Would you walk up to someone a a party and say "Hi . I'm great will you promote my work?" Very bad pick-up line.

Starting a blog...
1. Think of why you want to write a blog. I think a theme is quite good as it narrows down your perspective and prevents your blog from becoming a boring list of things you have been doing (eg. "Strange Fragments" is about craft and design)

2. Go to the Blogger website and sign up. It is easy and the instructions will just walk you through.

3.Posting a blog is a bit like writing something in a Word document. The little row of icons at the top of the "new post" box are what you use to add images from your computer, add links etc.

4. Images are really important for artists blogs. Consider signing up to a photography site called Flickr. This site allows you to download high resolution images and creates an online gallery of your photos. You can put the photos on your blog from Flickr and also use it as a portfolio and send galleries and other bloggers to your Flickr site if you want them to see your whole body of work.


a weird little vase I made at the ANU summer school in Trudi Golley's workshop.

5.Sign up to Google Analytics so you can see how many people are visiting your blog , what country they come from, how long they spend on each page etc.

7. Blurb is a wonderful resource for artists. On this website you can start a book, chose any size, format, write your own text and upload images. When the book is finished you can buy as many copies for yourself as you wish and put it up for sale in the Blurb bookshop. This is a great resource for creating a folio to show galleries.

6.Start using the internet. Post a few entries. start putting up links in your blog. Contact blogs and websites you really like and introduce yourself and tell people you have linked to them. comment on others blogs. The more you use the internet the more you build community. Be part of the online community.

Be "swellegant" at your next gallery opening with the power of the blog!

7. Bring the blogs down to earth. It is no use being an online success if you are not getting work or actually meeting people in the flesh. Visit other cities and see if you can catch up with people you have met online. Conferences, art openings and industry events are great for this. Instead of lurking by the back wall desperately clutching your rapidly warming champagne next time you are at an opening you will know some people there through blogging. Say hello. It is important to supplement online activity with real events. Artists (particularly if you are a bit shy) can easily get caught up in the virtual world with no benefit to themselves or their practice, real contact with real people is the final, and most important step for getting the web to work for you.