ceramics, tapestries and googling medieval owls..........

Sometimes Googling is an immensely satisfying, inspiring process.


I was looking up images of owls in medieval tapestries this morning (as you do) and I was thrilled to discover the ceramic and textile exhibition of Dan and Amanda Wright.

Dan produces thrown, altered earthenware and his influences range from 1950's English slipware through to the graphic work of Piero Fornasetti.The terracotta base forms of English slipware have a warmth and vitality that infuses the drawings and seems to pull them into the surface of the vessel.

Dan and Amanda's exhibition was shown in St Davids Cathedral in Pembrokeshire in August. The setting, combined with the beautiful soft detailed texture of the tapestries and the dynamic composition of the vessels, where the image seems to be thrusting against the constraints of the forms creates a visually exciting exhibition. I wish I could have seen this one.

I have to credit illustrator Jackie Morris for the photos of the St David's exhibition. I came across them on her beautiful blog. Jackie's website is extensive and browsing through her enormous body of work is a perfect thing for a Sunday morning.

Molly Hatch- Contemporary American Decorative

This is the work of American ceramicist Molly Hatch. Molly's practice combines making domestic ware and creating amazing, beautiful exhibition installations. Molly's work explores the power of the domestic vessel. She says

"A cup or a bowl is almost universally accessible and navigable as most people use them in their daily lives. For me, the blank cup is anonymous in a manner similar to a blank piece of paper. The three-dimensional surface tableware provides is rich with conceptual potential as a place for drawings and paintings. Interaction is encouraged through the decoration of hidden surfaces—the underside of a cup, beneath a lid or on a handle. "
I've voiced many similar sentiments over the years!

As well as being a great artist Molly is a writer and academic and her blog "stripes and dots" is essential reading for followers of contemporary decorative ceramics and aesthetic concerns within the strange world of modern pottery.

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

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

Drawing from it with his eyes.....

"It is often said that Leonardo drew so well because he knew about things; it is truer to say that he knew about things because he drew so well." (Kenneth Clark)
I have been working on a HUGE order. It seems as if it has been going for years. by the end of a huge order I am getting drawing fatigue. Every piece has to have the same level of attack and commitment in the mark making and it is hard to maintain this, your hands and mind gets tired.

"The process of drawing is, before all else, the process of putting the visual intelligence into action, the very mechanics of visual thought. Unlike painting and sculpture it is the process by which the artist makes clear to himself, and not to the spectator, what he is doing. It is a soliloquy before it becomes communication." (Michael Ayerton)
It's really worth persevering with this approach though....or else you end up with meaningless marks.

"To 'draw' implies everything the word stands for: to pull or to drag or to draw forth, as from the earth, a vein, or well. (Lance Esplund)"

Emerson wrote the quote below referring to drawing as in "bringing out" I think it can apply equally to the intimate process of discovery in rendering a bird's nest in oxide and underglaze onto a porcelain surface.

“(s)He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time (s)he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues it possesses” Ralph Waldo Emerson