What else have I been doing?

What else?   I've been doing some clay shrinkage and glaze tests at Central TAFE (CIT) dry colourful ones, mostly in oxidation and am very keen to see the reduced glaze tests below which will come out of the gas kiln tomorrow.  I've been wanting to do those ones based on Anne Hirondelle's earlier work for years but my own gas kiln had not been installed.  Fingers crossed for an exciting result with these tests.  

My large platters have been drying out slowly and are finally in the bisque kiln.  Just allowing myself to be loose and to play with ideas I'd been too busy for has allowed a whole new style to evolve - I didn't see that coming.  I've been hand building the platters with Walkers BRT clay with is nice and groggy and robust, but cracks if left in a draught, guess how I know that.

I had some rubber stamps I had carved to hand and pressed the stamps into the soft crunchy clay around the rim to see what happened.  I liked it, so I printed into the clay surface too.  These are about 60cm wide.  Quite a contrast from my usual uptight porcelain nest forms aren't they?  

The motifs are a bit folksy and reminiscent of European wood carvings, which makes sense given they were carved from rubber blocks, a lovely task on which to spend time.  

In fact the platters were designed to receive certain glazes - dry and textural and I have to keep reminding myself of this to stay on task a little.  It is hard to stop carving rubber blocks when you get started.  

BIG STUFF

A magnet on my fridge door reminds the four males in my house that 'Only dull women have immaculate houses'.  I have no wish to be 'dull', nor to be dazzling either.  I suspect that taking time out to say, clean the bath, dust the blinds or vacuum, would rob me of time spent on more interesting things to me like -  clay, glaze, art, books, friends, movies, studio time. In addition to this weak argument for being a hint slovenly at times - I am allergic to dust!  That kind of justifies my approach I think.  I am only protecting my health, right?!  Fortunately a blindness to mess prevails in our very tolerant home.  So I was torn last week between doing the necessary housey stuff and spending time on clay at CIT Perth for this my first ever Artist's residency. I clocked up enough time to get about four 60cm platters made by forming the clay into a mould I'd made.  As I observed them, firming up slowly, and contemplated how I'd decorate them - the inclination to splash brush loads of slip just took over.  What am I doing here?  I am indulging myself in some time to make what the heck appeals most to me just now, to make large platters from crunchy robust clay, play with my print techniques on clay, explore some hot textural glazes and get some pretty adventurous quadraxial tests up and running.  I haven't used my Matrix software for ages and I love it so. The platters are made through a technique Ian Jones, ACE Woodfirer of ACT taught us ways to make BIG STUFF.  It was novel and liberating to be making BIG stuff but sadly I could not take my work back on the plane with me to Perth.  A 60cm platter on Qantas?  It wasn't happening.  I can throw larger pieces but have a dodgy shoulder I must work around. So I make the slightly (maybe more than that) imperfectly formed hand built platters, and let my first instinct tell me how to finish them.  I think I am overwhelming myself with all of the ideas I want to try out but gosh it is fun to just 'play'.