A TESTING LESSON

I am back from the ANU residential school in Canberra and had such a blast. Technically I wasn't participating as a student in the actual workshops (mentioned in a recent posting) by Trudy Golley (Canada) on slab built vase forms in paperclay and Anne Linneman (Denmark) on throwing and altered forms, but I got to be present for as much as I could. I was floating around as an Interim Work Proposal (IWP) Student and learning of the requirements and implications. The work I presented for assessment was for a previous unit on Image and Text on Clay taught by Professor Suzanne Wolfe of Hawaii

I was embarassed to have to show work on which the clay surface had flaked spectacularly from the clay surface, due to a process I'd squeezed in at the last minute, untested. To quote Homer - 'Duh!' Not the Greek Homer! :>D I'd wanted to create whiter surfaces with an engobe on my paperclay box forms to make my coloured glazes, imagery and text to be appear brighter. I'd taken a risk and it didn't work.

In fact, and typically of the staff in the Ceramics Department of ANU, they glossed over my 'learning experience', (I'm usually so into my testing and line blends etc.), and they latched onto the fragmented appearance that'd been formed instead. The surfaces had become like layers of wallpapers on a very old wall - or, as I described it to a friend, Colefax and Fowler wallpaper meets Mortar Bomb Attack.

So I don't hate the failed work, it will hang in my studio as a jumping off point for one of my next projects, I got some great results and learned a valuable lesson again, test, test, test!

Additionally, I met all the old pals (well not so much old as long standing) and many new ones, including Shannon Garson http://www.shannongarson.com whose work (these delicious Magnolia vessels) and blog I'd long admired http://strangefragments.blogspot.com/ as well as Jackie Gasson of The Clay Shed on the Sunshine Coast http://www.clayshed.com.au