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.

My Nana

My Nana was the first person to give me an appreciation of the soothing powers of a cup of tea served in fine china. Now, when I drink tea and make teacups and teapots it reminds me of all the lovely cups of tea I've had over the years in Nana's old teacups, from the 1970's cup and saucer sets completely covered in gold through to "fine, bone china" cups with roses on the interior. This was just one of the many, many precious things she bought into my life.


She died yesterday at the age of 89.

Invitations.........

This necklace is from "Revisiting the Australian Landscape - interpreting the landscape on an intimate scale"
Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland
Sunday 18 July – Sunday 15 August 2010
Opening Event 11am Sunday 18 July 2010

As you can see the fabulous Rebecca Ward is the feature artist on the invitation with one of the pieces she has developed for the Swamp Cartography project that we have been working on.

Here is another invitation........ I am in the "Teawares" show at the Jamfactory in Adelaide opening this Friday evening.

"Teawares
Selected Australian ceramic, metal and furniture designers
With a rich history of travel through trade, links to British imperialism, strong cultural significance through tea ceremonies and countless personal memories of grandmother’s scones and tea service, the enduring properties or tea have ensured its place as an important beverage within daily life. Tea is a fertile subject for investigation by writers and artists alike. Drawing on the real and the mythic, this stunning exhibition combines compelling contemporary tea wares in ceramic and metal in a setting of finely crafted furniture."
This should be a really interesting show as it includes metalwork and furniture.
Spoons by Anna Varendorf
Teaset by Kenji Uranishi

Thirst

I'm working on the scribbly gum for the wallum project. Rebecca made me some metal plates etched with impressions taken from out photos of the wallum. After the yunomi were thrown I re-dampened them by the highly technical process of putting them in a plastic box with a wet plaster slab in the bottom of it overnight and then used the rounded end of a rolling pin to press the bases of the yunomi onto the etchings from the inside.
These are the second incarnation of this design and the third incarnation will be pared back further. I'll keep going until the pure essence of the bush is distilled into the drawing. Until picking up these yunomi captures first the smoky rays of sun touching the tops of the eucalyptus, the cool damp smell of the dew and the "wheeeeeeee- CRACK" of the whip bird's call.
As tea drinking vessels these pots will be handled a lot. From the setting of the table through to the washing up a drinking vessel constantly interacts with the body and brain of the user. It needs to be stimulating yet calming. Sometimes I feel like having a cup of tea is a tiny island of calm in the midst of a chaotic world. It is really important to me that the drinking vessel is the focus of this expanding circle of calm, yet leads the mind to wander in a creative direction. Having a cup of tea is not just for quenching physical thirst.

..and for the Grande Finale

For the Grand Finale of the Ultimate Virtual Teapot Competition I present Yi xing teapots without exception and Australian ceramicist extraordinaire Bruce Nuske.

Yi Xing teapots are still being produced after ten centuries and my favourites are made of a beautiful, fine grained purple clay. These teapots are made by hand in many designs. The traditional Yi xing teapots feature raised sprigs and small sculptures representing "Good Luck" or "Money". There are hundreds of designs from pumpkin shapes through to more formal plain surfaces. The quality of a Yi Xing teapot can be seen in the slightly metallic surface which should make a clear ringing sound when struck lightly and the lid which should fit without room for a single hair between the pot and the gallery. The teapot absorbs the flavour of the tea and it is said that a good quality Yi Xing teapot will be able to make tea after many years by just adding hot water.


Australian ceramicist Bruce Nuske is my final choice. His beautiful/crazy teapots combine an encyclopaedic knowledge of ceramic history and techniques with a whimsy and emphasis on surface design. I love the way Nuske's pots quote from the grand industrial traditions of the Victorians while being defiantly handmade. The surface design references chintzes, Wedgewood and other familiar industrial patterns but on close inspection reveals amazing technical details such as the piercing on this dried leaf teapot.

To find out a it more about Bruce there is a great article by Stephen Bowers here....

teapots continued......

My second choice is the wonderful Jane Sawyer's tactile, warm, heavy pot.  Regular readers of this blog will know that I use one of Jane's pots every day.  The finger marks in the slip give me so much pleasure as my hand washes the pot out brushing against the marks in counter rhythm.

The other pot I own is a Phil Elson teapot.  Phil is also an Australian potter and this teapot is just perfect in every way.  The pouring is particularly lovely as is the shape which manages to be both contemporary and classic.

Power Lunch

celebration_cake(2), originally uploaded by shannongarson.

Photo taken by Kylie Johnson at another power lunch for the Umbrella Collective.

I occasionally have "power lunches" with my friend Sarah Rayner from Audrey and Rose. As we both live in the country and work at home in our totally daggy thermal fleece jackets, the term power lunch is used ironically. But..... these lunches are really important, we talk bout what inspires us, show each other our new work, hash out solutions to business hiccups and most importantly encourage each other through all our moods. What may look to the outsider like two artists having a gasbag and stuffing their faces is actually an important part of my practice. Talking to other artists is inspiring and useful!

Audrey and Rose have just launched their website which includes a section on their new range "Audrey and Rose Interiors". How fabulous are these?

A cup of tea

Today's post is on one of my favourite things
A cup of tea. I've often thought that if I made a map of where I walk in the kitchen as I make a cup of tea that the path I move across the floor and trace through the air with the teaspoon as I put the tea in the pot would move in exactly the same line through the air every day. Making tea is the most prosaic of rituals and that's why I believe it is so comforting.
Bethan Laura Wood from the UK has encapsulated the gradual, slow comfort of tea drinking in her "Stain"cups. Through use they reveal their essential place in the tea drinkers life. The act of drinking deepening their connection with both the artist and the ritual.






PS. Thanks Blueberry Fool

The Golden Bowl

I have just finished a "Personal Reading Challenge" It was Henry James' "The Golden Bowl"- and it was really hard going. Sometimes I just like to read hard classics, when I get to the end I not only feel a sense of achievement but they are always thought provoking and rewarding.

I loved the themes in "The Golden Bowl" which are encapsulated in the metaphor of this strange golden bowl. It is not gold but crystal covered with gilt and has a strange fascination for some the main characters in the story. The golden bowl however has a fatal flaw ,and although it is not visible to the more discerning it is obvious that it is there.

In celebration of this book I'm introducing bowls I like. They are not gold and often contain a quality that in the perfection of industrial design would be considered flawed- I however, find them perfect and satisfying in their own way. As a metaphor in my life these bowls contain the rough and the smooth, they are comforting,rewarding and reveal unexpected subtelty with use...

Simon Reece, Australian potter. I drink tea from one of his cups everyday.











Ayumi Horie. Beautiful.
American potter