Issac Button can throw a ton of clay into pots a day!

Students of ceramics and the austere beauty of hard work will love this film. Made in the 1960's it features English potter Issac Button, a man who makes herculean tasks appear effortless. I like the way he smokes a pipe while throwing, I like his simple robust pots. Issac Button claimed that he "never left a pub the same day I entered it!"
As a country potter myself I admire the plain way he goes about his daily work. We are very lucky to have a visual record of something at once so amazing and so ordinary.
Thanks to David Neale for putting the film up on his blog.

Saturday Afternoon

Saturday afternoon. The setting sun and closing of the day has always been an inspiring time for me. Since the "Time of the Children" began the closing of the day is a signal to frantically finish up what ever I'm working on and rush up the stairs to the dinner/shower bedtime tsunami, finishing at around 7.00 by collapsing on the couch. But today we have Holly Throsby playing really loud and the table has a pot of freshly made tea steaming on it and my camera is handy and somehow the elegiac ordinary, setting of the sun through the western windows washes the room with golden light and beauty descends.

And we all have a cup of tea and play our music REALLY LOUD. And I stop wishing I lived in a groovy house that looks like something off "The Selby" blog and that Trev and I hung around the house looking like Potter/cheesemaker/ex-models in our nouveau boho clothing somehow incorporating something in the vague form of a vest that looks like it was made out of a flokati rug.

And I think of an idea to celebrate my normal, wonderful life and the normal wonderful lives of the unstyled cups and plates that we use everyday. Every so often I am going to post images of pots in their natural environment. Chipped, cracked,being sipped at by grubs who insist on drinking out of their teaspoons and spilling milk all over the table. This is how art and life connect.

I've always said there is no use in a having a teapot that is only for looking at.

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.....

Prescription for handmade

My friend has to go into hospital for an operation. I suggested that she take her own teacup with her. As I was having my own cup of tea this morning I wondered why I thought having your own teacup might make you feel better and using a generic hospital cup might make you feel worse.

The only comfort thick, white slightly scratched hospital cups are offer is the fact of their bleached,impersonal, grey-scratched cleanliness. The fact that crockery is very clean is unlikely to offer a patient any comfort, or relief from the fear and pain.

The very feel of a familiar cup in your hand with it's associations of home and loved ones could go long way to quieting fears. This is where handmade cups are at their greatest. In their inherent texturality, the individuality of handmade pots creates connection both between the vessels and the user and between the artist and the user. These associations are driven far from the patient in the sterile, flourescent lighting of the hospital ward. I've often thought potters should band together and provide handmade cups and teapots for recovery rooms for chemotherapy. The chemical process being finished off with a simple ritual of tea or coffee (or even water) in handmade cups marking the transition between being a patient entering the world again as an individual.

Being in hospital is a scary time, alienated from your own body by the processes of modern medicine and by the necessarily sterile atmosphere, bringing your cup from home is a powerful reminder that you are an individual, you fit into the world and are connected to the human race through mysterious and comforting everyday rituals.

The intimate, familiar feeling of your cup at your lips can whisk you out of the hospital and back to your own kitchen. What other small object would have so a powerful and comforting effect?

All tableware made by Australian potter Sandy Lockwood including my own favourite cup pictured with Jane Sawyer teapot and little blue Susie McMeekin milk jug.

Compound Decoration

When I throw a vessels the completed object is in my mind. I think of the magnolia or the nest or the eucalyptus twigs and try to get the line of these things, the single complete line, through my arms and fingers into the clay to create the three dimensional field for the decoration. Many people would say "How can you tell the difference isn't a tea bowl a tea bowl?" The difference becomes obvious when the decoration is complete. Each element of the vessel, the form, the function, the colour, the compostion, the weight and the texture must all enhance each other, none taking over from the original idea so that what looks like a plain old tea bowl becomes a thought about sunny afternoons with nothing to do lying in the head high grass or the way things grow, or the enormous interconnected emotions arond the family and the home symbolised by a nest, when it is held in the hand.

There are about 17 steps in each pot (they take ages!) The purpose of all this mucking about with raw pots is to integrate the surface and the form. Vessels are interesting because the field for the drawing has edges in the rim and foot of the piece. The decoration can lead the fingers over the rim or contain the eyes within the bowl of the vessel. The purpose of the line is to seduce one into touching the piece then move the toucher through the pot making them aware of the weight the thinness of the rim, the texture of the line and colours. All my pots have "hidden" textural and visual elements. Some can only be seen if the vessel is held up to the light at a certain angle and the edge reveals the surprise of translucence, some will only be discovered as you wash up and feel the pots underwater or turn it upside down. I want the decoration and the conceptual idea to be totally integrated into the pot not just floating on the surface. The vessels are in continual dialogue with those who see them and handle them. Only those who look closer can really experience this back and forth between the inanimate object and their own body. At the same time the imagery suggests other things so the viewer is led to a "gate" into visual concepts and the philosophical thoughts that might arise from this.

The form is the thing that makes domestic ceramics such a powerful force. Because the vessel is such an innocuous, common form it creates a space where all these other things can slip in. Between the noise of making school lunches, the clatter of saucepans, sizzle of eggs frying and tug of the life of the house there is a small , quiet space in a tea bowl or milk jug where , for a second you can smell the dusty grass of a long sunny afternoon with the bees buzzing around your head and the cloud shadows chasing each other across the blue, blue sky.

Australian Ceramics Triennale- coming up...

I'm firing madly getting ready to take some work down to the Australian Ceramics Triennle.

I'm on a panel about education. This sounds very dry but it will be a cracker - I think it should be called "Revolting Education- the Changing Face of Ceramic Learning in the 21st Century" It will be a panel discussion with plenty of input from the revolting artists who are watching. Throw us questions (not rotten fruit and vegetables) on mentorships, how they can work with contemporary artists. The internet, does it have a role in education(!?) Is formal learning of ceramics dead? ......And other contentious issues.

I'll also be doing a presentation on using blogging as a powerful tool for creativity and financial independence.

And last but not least I'll be bringing down a selection of work to sell at the Ceramics Direct Market on Sunday. One of my favourite memories of a conference is finding Sandra Black sitting behind a table at the National Conference a few years ago. She only had a small selection of beautiful items and it has been my lasting pleasure to have bought one. I look at this little pot nearly every day.

It makes me think of clouds, the soft/hard, cold/hot push and pull of the clay and lovely Sandra making a few dollars to supplement her trip. I'm so glad she was there and I could buy this lovely pot.


Maybe I'll see you at the Triennale.

Throwing pots- in a few easy steps!

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 Use the Web for Artists OR a Lifeline for the Technologically Reluctant

I am doing a blog workshop this Wednesday at the Maleny Artworks Gallery. This post is also part of a panel I am taking part in at the Australian Ceramics Triennale in July this year.

Blogging can give people greater insight into the artistic process, most particularly how entwined the process of inspiration and making is in everyday life. I encourage all artists to find their own little corner of the internet, reading blogs, posting comments on others blogs and posting images to established blogs are all powerful ways of connecting with other artists and the wider community.

I heard an amazing statistic the other day...98% of web content is written by 2% of web users. Many people feel that blogging is something they just can't get into because they haven't got time. I maintain that artists can use the internet better, to meet their peers, learn technical information, gain inspiration and promote their own work. With this in mind I've compiled a list of links (or as I like to call it a lifeline for the technologically reluctant) This will enable you to dip your toe into the sea of blogs and wade out as far as you feel comfortable- who knows some of you may become addicted and venture off beyond the breakers!

Art and design
These blogs are good for inspiration browsing and researching names of galleries/markets etc that might be worth approaching personally.
Moda Muse- Australian Contemporary Craft and Design
Handmadelife- an artists blog featuring work from Ramona Barry and Rebecca Jobson and exhibitions around Melbourne, Australia.
Dear Ada- amazing art and design blog based in America but featuring international artists.
Design Sponge- design and interiors based in America, if you can get your work on this blog you will definitely recieve approaches from galleries- it is very widely read.
Udessi- Brisbane based artist and business woman Kim Wallace's blog connected to her online store, beautiful art and design.

Illustration Art- drawing and illustration blog.
High up in the trees- Gracia Haby, illustrator, zine writter and bookmaker extraordinare.

Fashion
Kris's Colour Stripes- fashion designer photography and colour swatches. Isolates the colours from his photos, excellent resource.

The Sartorialist- pure inspiration from fashion photographer Scott Schuman. Street shots from European capitals and New York.



Food
101 Cookbooks- cookbook author and photographer San Francisco based Heidi Swanson's cooking blog.
Not Quite Nigella- cupcake queen and food blogger from Sydney, Australia.

Recipe on Not Quite Nigella Blog


Photography
Simply Photo- Jennifer Causey excellent photography blog featuring international photographers.
Simply Breakfast- Jennifer Causey (professional photographer) beautiful photo blog of her breakfasts.

Jen Causey's latest breakfast.

Textiles
Kirin Notebook- Lara Cameron, Melbourne artist and textile designer gives insight into her studio and inspiration.

A shot from Lara Cameron's studio
Mantua Maker- Ruth Singer UK based textile artist and fashion designer.


Ceramics
Six Hundred Degrees- Sophie Milne, Australian ceramicist
Musing About Mud- Carole Epp's wide ranging ceramics blog. A good place to start.
Sawdust and Dirt- Michael Kline, a wood-firin' , country livin', dad from Carolina, beautiful pots and insights into the potting life.
Euan Craig- Australian born potter living in Japan and working with a top Tokoyo chef to create tableware and food that combine as one.



Australian Ceramics Triennale- Information about the Australian Ceramics Triennale and a comprehensive overview of the many exhibitors, speakers and ceramics. An excellent resource for those who can't attend in person.

Just out of the kiln......

Pied Beauty
GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Gerard Manly Hopkins

Eucalyptus vessels heading fro Sydney in July...
Title:
on the table too
When:
09.07.2009 - 22.07.2009
Where:
Planet - Surry Hills, Sydney

Dancing about pots

I have been doing hip-hop lessons. No-one will ever see the results of this, I'm absolutely terrible. (Unless I get really drunk at the national conference and think it would be a good idea.... But actually I'm so BAD despite my lessons that I'll probably be doing daggy 80's school disco style like everyone else my age. And that's tragic enough, best to avoid alcohol and musical situations altogether!)

Despite teaching me very little about dancing, hip-hop lessons have taught me a thing or two about making pots. In dancing class the teacher shows you a few steps and you practice a couple of times then do it to music, after that it goes on to the next steps and it all moves along pretty fast relying on your memory. Eventually the teacher sits down to watch the class and almost always sees me in the back going left when everyone else is going right. It is a great memory exercise though. What I've learned about potting comes in when I'm throwing.

Usually I put a pointer up and throw to the pointer to get all the teabowls the same size, after dancing class I realized that relying on the pointer meant I was doubting my physical memory just as relying on the mirrors and watching the teacher in dance class prevents you from actually learning the steps. When I forgot about the pointer the throwing was smoother, more rhythmic and the bowls all came out within a millimeter of each other. Letting go of your safety net.....
You find you didn't need it after all.


Fizzy D dancing like flying, dancing like throwing.

the old with the new

Pottery that has been handled and traveled has a certain something about it. Is it a physical quality or is it a psychological resonance that we pick up on through socialization?

Old plates found in op-shops were my first pottery purchases, back then they cost about 50 cents. I still love mixing the old with the new.

Gallery of Modern Art

Last week I went to the new Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art. The architecture plays a major role in the experience of GOMA. I think it is an excellent example of the use of industrial processes and materials in an sensitive site-friendly way.



The artwork I loved the most were these ceramic vessels from Iran ( I can't remember the date on these but I think it was around 800 AD). They are ancient but the shapes are so refined and modern, they remind me of Gwynn Hansen-Piggott's family groupings.

A Christmas Story

I have just received a lovely present from Welsh potter/illustrator and publisher Joanna Howells and it put me in mind of the Christmas Eve I went to Wales.



About ten years ago I was living in a boring suburban town in England and a friend asked me up to Wales for Christmas. On a wild and windy Chrismas Eve I walked to the train station glad to be leaving the stultifying boredom of St Albans behind me. I'd prebooked my ticket to the famous Welsh town of Carnarvon.



At St Pancras station I looked at the board and .....to my horror found that the train to Carnarvon had left 15 minutes before. I was determined (and a little hysterical) to get out of the Southeast and into Wales any way I could. The man behind the information desk was wearing a very fancy ring like a glittering diamond skull, when faced with a hysterical Australian crying and babbling about Carnarvon and seemed to be a bit worried. I insisted on getting whatever train was going to Wales that night and sleeping in the station if I had to! He let me ring my friend who was on the snow covered road from his isolated farmhouse to the train station which was actually in the less well-known Welsh town of CARMARTHEN!!!!!!!

Eventually I reached Carmarthen.........



Happy Christmas to all Welsh men and women.
Lovely pots by Joanna Howells

Journal of Australian Ceramics

When I was in Sydney a few weeks ago I popped in to the offices of The Journal of Australian Ceramics. I can really recommend this magazine to all ceramicists ( not just Australians!) Vicki Grima, the editor, themes every issue and sources articles from the cream of Australian craft writers and working artists.

Vicki and the pottery dog at their office.

The latest issue is based around the theme of education and includes articles on-

"The Changing Face of Ceramics" how artists are interfacing with technology and mass production by Janet de Boos.

Woodfiring in an environmentally sustainable way by Ray Cavill,



and a lovely philosophical article on teapots by Phil Elson complete with detailed working photos of the creation of his classic, refined teapots.



Check it out online....

A Day in the Life.....

Sunrise
Hear kookaburras starting up before dawn...Lie in bed
What will I do today?
Fizzy D wanders in warm as a freshly laid egg and snuggles up
Bliss lasts for ten or so minutes.
Breakfast, milk, toast
"Not cut in three Mama! CUT IN TWO."
Think about pots, lovely sunny day good for throwing.



Get everyone in clothes, lunches- hope they look nutritious and children don't appear at kindy and childcare as homeless waifs who's selfish mother only provides cucumber and sultanas as "fun" snacks.
Say "Good morning" to husband.

Everyone out the door.
think about pots
"What does a full- blown flower signify?
Look at stomach wish I had time to do Pilates.

Go downstairs to studio. Think about pots, think about Lucie Rie in her architect designed apartment, making glazes.

Forgot to feed chooks
Try and kill two birds with one stone by thinking about pots and eggs-
'How is an egg like a pot? What is the special tactile appeal of an egg?
Can I find this in a bowl?
Thought is knocked from head by the discovery of human POO on shoe.
It is not mine.
Wonder despairingly if horrible POO is anywhere else.
Can't think of it now must do work in studio.

Plunge hands into cool wet clay
Throwing throwing.



Day is creeping away
What's for dinner?
Wonder how Janet de Boos learnt so much about glazes
Wonder if you can use iron as a colourant in my clear glaze.
Look at vessels. Head full of line, variation, colouring
Wonder why Sweet Pea doesn't like meatballs anymore?

On No! 2.30! Run up to bustop and look casual so I don't appear to be a BAD forgetful mother.

What could be nicer than a squeaky voice screaming "MAMA!" as a whirling dervish flies from the bus?

Get Sweet Pea from Childcare
Thank God for childcare.



Think about pots waiting in studio
Try and throw a couple more
Try to enjoy the fact that the children are watching
Say "Don't Touch!" fifty-three times
Give up
Feel bad knowing I must concentrate whole energy on children- they've had a big day.
Make dinner

Eat at 5.30 feel it is a bit uncivilized
Not helped by looking at Sweet Pea putting pasta on her head in excitement over nothing much.

Try to put studio out of mind for tomorrow

Clean children in pyjamas
Read "Za Za's Baby Brother"
Read "The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate"
Wish I was a pirate
Kiss sleepy heads
Talk to husband for a few seconds
Communicate our deep and abiding love to one another by giving each other a small pat on back and sitting on couch side by side.
Remind myself that this won't last forever....

But why won't it?
It's beautiful