Getting ready - a commission.

Some of my earliest memories of living here in Fremantle include taking our lads as toddlers down to Bather's Beach, a small beach on the edge of Fishing Boat Harbour .  This is a short walk from Arthurs Head, the J Shed where Jenny Dawson, ceramic artist, Photographer Peter Zuvela and Greg James, Scuptor have studios.  Just as close are Freo's Cappucino Strip and the cafe's, bars and businesses in town.  The arrival of Notre Dame University has gentrified the once tatty working class corner of town nearby, given employment to some friends, and educated their offspring.  How would you like to go to a Uni where you can loll on a beach within two minutes of attending a lecture?  There used to be a MacDonalds on the beach too, and many happy hours have been passed and happy meals consumed by WA families here.
Twenty years ago Joan Campbell who is remembered as a 'pioneering potter' of WA had her studio in the old Kerosene Store, right on Bather's Beach facing the Indian Ocean.  Joan instigated the installation of a large wooden jetty formed from the old timbers of Busselton Jetty if I am to understand correctly, as homage to the history of the area and on which people climb, lol, and lie under the glow of the sun or the moon, according to their whim.  Joan screen printed, artwork, text and maps illustrating the place in former times, onto tiles which were installed into a horizontal beam.  As you can see, the tiles have suffered in the two decades, from the very harsh climate or from vandalism.

I have been asked, by Fremantle Council's Public Art Coordinator, to replicate the tiles, as faithfully as I can.  This week, I have done a fair bit of ground work in testing mesh sizes of silkscreens for the job.  The true test will be after lacquering the prints, applying them to test tiles and firing them.  Then I will know which mesh type gives the best print with the china paint.  The green ones here are Riso Screens which use a thermal printer to process, and the pink ones are Stencil Pro which can use sunlight to expose the image onto the mesh.  So there is a bit of local history, culture and some print on clay info to boot for you.  I will post again as the work progresses.  

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.