leptospermums in silver

First we clean the silver and coat the surface with bitumen paint.
Then I draw leptospernums, Scratching in the silver, the scratchy, twiggy, sticky bushes covered in tiny white blossoms.
Then Rebecca goes to work with her jeweller's saw and ...........
The lovely tiny blossoms appear, magical, and softly gleaming silver.

From Swamp Cartography Rebecca Ward jewellery and Shannon Garson porcelain collaboration we are doing in preparation for a nationally touring exhibition 2011-12

Wallum porcelain- leptospermum

Leptospernum blossoms are familiar to all lovers of the wallum. Tiny and white these five petalled flowers completely cover the small scratchy bushes that produce them. I made these porcelain works with an scraffitto/inlay technique which in itself is a rather scratchy dry process. The interiors are pure, translucent Southern Ice porcelain covered in a clear glaze. The exterior captures the light with a spotted pattern of clear glaze over the dry drawing.

The final exhibition for Rebecca and my collaboration will include some groups of 10-15 pieces of this leptspernum work ranging form large bowls through to tiny teabowls all covered in the sepia drawings and softly capturing and reflecting light from their spotted surfaces.

Mark making- Ian Fairweather

"Mark making" is the pretentious but appropriately descriptive word we used for it at art college. It describes the act of drawing and was regarded as very old-fashioned and many times declared to be "dead"! Well drawing will never be dead. Even in these days of electronic communication making marks is an ancient impulse, from the time when our chubby little fingers can grasp, even if it is a medium as soft and difficult to control as mashed banana, humans want to make marks.I saw an exhibition of Australian artist Ian Fairweather's work the other day. Fairweather has become a bit of a legend as, after the WW2 he sailed a raft from Timor to Bribie Island in Queensland and famously lived there in a humpy on the beach in dire poverty until his death in 1974.Fairweather's paintings are magnificent. He plays with the pictorial depth, the calligraphic lines push and pull the flat patches of paint. His works recall medieval stained glass windows in their division of the pictorial plane and the way that they seem to draw light into the surface creating volume where there are only two dimensions. Close up these works are beautiful patterns emerging and disappearing, as you move further away the lines resolve to form children on a donkey, women's heads, scenes of domestic life celebrated and elevated to become spiritual.

This forest floor is from Stradbroke Island. The she-oaks and banksia leaves fall in this pattern. Fairweather would have looked at patterns like this every day. The brilliance of his work is that it connects these quiet, natural patterns with Asian village life and the meditative practice of calligraphy as practiced by the masters of Chinese calligraphy in their monasteries. Fairweather's materials were meagre, his colours could be described as dull yet his paintings transcend the material limitations and become tributes to the human condition. The computer screen does not do justice to the stark, rhythmic beauty of these works.

Throwing, Clouds and Magnolias

The wheel
clouds
magnolia bowls

Potier- distinctive objects made by hand

I'm so excited to be part of a new store/gallery that has just opened in Melbourne. Lovers of handmade ceramics feast your eyes on this......


Potier is the inspiration of Melbourne ceramics collector Judith Buckridge and represents many of Australia's most exciting makers. Artists Judith has collected in her store include, Bridget Bodenham, Phil Elson, Jane Sawyer, Christopher Plumridge, Sandy Lockwood, Chris Coad and Sophie Milne. I think the motto says it all
"distinctive objects - made by hand."

Here is Judith's statement of intent
"From individually crafted domestic ware to exquisite one-off sculptural pieces, Potier provides the perfect space to experience and buy beautiful and important works of local and national significance.Marianne Huhn

Potier was created to promote the importance of ceramic practice and develop a broader understanding of, and desire to acquire, handmade one-off pieces for everyday use and as collectors' items."

Christopher Plumridge

Revolutionary words in a retail environment. Viva la Revolution!

yunomi

Listening to ........The Unthanks
and
This American Life

Making Yunomi

You could study yunomi for years and the course of the journey would encompass every aspect of the potters art, and many of the quieter, more profiound pleasures to be found in simple acts of eating and drinking.Yunomi made by American potter Steven Colby

A yunomi is simply defined as a ceramic drinking vessel with a turned foot that is taller than it is wide. They are used in Japan for everyday drinking and are often sold in pairs. The pairs are not identical but complimentary with decoration and shape differing slightly, the larger cup being the "husband" and the smaller the "wife". I like the idea of making mismatched pairs, the husbandly/wife part is not so important as a mismatched but compatible to companion to share everyday pleasures with.

Silver and Clay

I've been visiting Rebecca's studio. We are into the creation phase of our wallum project and are spending time in each other's studios,learning "cross discipline" skills.

We painted silver and copper with brown, road tar goo and when it was dry, I scratched leptospernum blossoms and leaf silhouettes exposing the metal. The plates were then dipped into and acid bath.
We are working on a couple of ranges of jewellery incorporating metal, porcelain and thread. Here are the porcelain pendants in the background with silver cuttle fish castings of twigs in the foreground.

Brass etched plates ready for some work in the ceramic studio.