Mapping -wallum, creativity and collaboration

Swamp Cartography-
Cartography (in Greek chartis = map and graphein = write) is the study and practice of making maps (also can be called mapping). Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.
The process of making new work is harder than I usually like to reveal for fear of sounding a little too highly strung and artistic. It starts a long time before a single mark has been made and swirls and gestates for anything up to a few years. The collabotaive process adds another element that hasn't come into my working process before. Rebecca's brooches got me thinking about the ferns in the wallum, the way she connects two disparate materials with silver, the threads that connect all the wallum flora and all the ideas we continually revisit, merging and submerging. Sometimes an idea that one of us has bought up many times seems like a breakthrough when we are finally at a stage of being able to appreciate it.

These pots are maps. The marks are intended to draw the viewer over the surface, they map the volume and exterior of the vessel, the journeys I've taken through the wallum and the creative process.

Arthur H Robinson states that a map that is not properly designed will be a "cartographic failure". "The intent of the map should be illustrated in a manner in which the percipient acknowledges its purpose in a timely fashion. The term percipient refers to the person receiving information and was coined by Robinson. "(from wikipedia cartography entry)
I wanted the percipient of these bowls to feel their way over the surface and through the wallum. I also wanted the pots to contain a secondary map of the collaboration which doesn't sound so dry and boring when I refer to it as the inspiration and alchemy that occurs when two like -minded and wildly different artists get together.
Mapmakers claim that maps should contain a wealth of information and be multivariate. The richness of information in a map generates hypothesis, stimulates ideas and further research. Perhaps the purpose of art and the purpose of mapping intersect.

Around the world........Design studios

Jung Porzellan
Jung Porcelain from Berllin. Made by hand in a small design studio by Katy Jung.





Fienedinge
Created by ceramicist Sandra Haischberger Feinedige porcelain is a design studio based n Vienna, Austria. Sandra has the most beautiful workshop I have ever seen you can read more about her here.....

Shoko Teruyama- lyrical decorative

Scraffitto is one of my favourite techniques. This is one of the very first, most simple techniques people learn when they are first starting ceramics but there are never-ending variations on the technique of scraffitto.

Shoko Teruyama, Japanese born American ceramicist is inspired by the temples and shrines "decorated with texture and pattern contrasted by areas of calm and stillness" of her native country.
These beautiful works use overwhelming pattern in a poetic way leading the viewer around the pot. Decoration functions as an end in itself as details are revealed on closer viewing and also as an integral part of the form. Teruyama's use of pattern and colour reveals and amplifies the shape of the vessel. You often see decorated ware taken over by strident decoration but Teruyama's work avoids this by an insistence on the form and function within the decorative field. I like this work very much."Birds appear throughout my work to create focal points. Some birds swim in the motion of slip and fly around the vine patterns. Others are walking or sitting in thought. To me, the birds represent my sense of freedom."
From Shoko Teruyama's website

Drawing on the surface

Decorating. Sophie Milne wrote a post recently on how trivialising she finds this term as a description of what she is doing to the surface of her pots. I too find the word "decorating" inaccurate and a bit demeaning. I spent many years studying drawing and many more studying ceramics in order to make theses pots. "Decorating" implies a bit of frippery, something superficial added at the very end, something not integral to the vessel. What should we call it?
Working
drawing
surfacing
Sophie's beautiful pots..........

Jewellery/ceramic collaboration- wallum jewels

Here are some images of new work from the Swamp Cartography collaboration I am doing with jeweller Rebecca Ward.
This brooch was made with Southern Ice porcelain impression from the wallum and set in oxidised sterling silver.
Rebecca made a pate de verre cast of one of our wallum impressions when we were down in Canberra working at Canberra Glassworks. She then set the plaque in sterling silver.