MARIANNE HALLBERG, SWEDEN

I came upon the work of Swedish ceramic artist Marianne Hallberg through a mention on Graham Hay's FaceBook page .  I love this work, playful and quirky, seemingly 'simple' but, really, NOT.  

Australia day, Darl!

It is hard to beat the lethargy in 41C here in Fremantle, we are enduring a heatwave but that is no excuse for not blogging.  Procrastination and busyiness took hold of me again and I have now firmly kicked their asses ... I hope.  I was updating my status on Facebook just now when it dawned on me, darn this should be on my blog.  So .. here it is .. and a promise of more blogging and bleating from here on, but perhaps not always on clay, insights of our homelife may creep plus it is too darn hot to get any work done at this time of year.

'We saw the Fremantle Australia Day skyshow from the beach at Arthur's Head Fremantle, just past the J Shed (a three minutes walk from my Freo studio) see Joel's blog http://freoview.wordpress.com/tag/greg-james/. Greg James THE man who puts all that iconic bronze sculpture around Fremantle let us park outside his studio door for '20 mins' which became much more when I met, nearly tripped over them in the dark actually, my pals Jenny Dawson (potter) and Peter Zuvela (photographer and much more) of the J Shed.  
We had a long chat in the darkness after the brilliant skyshow. Henry, Oscar and Gaelan had sat on the steps with the water lapping at our feet, surrounded by people quietly enjoying the fireworks zooming from a pontoon only about 100m out in the bay. It was like having our own personal fireworks show right over our heads. Fantastic!!'  Now, I could include a photo of the beach or the fireworks here, but I feel sure my (legions of) readers have seen such like before.  On selecting an image to share with you I realised my son's new ipod syncs it's photos to my laptop so here is Gaelan getting to grips with his specs made from drinking straws and tubes, much more fun don't you think??  The art in the background is by Mitjili Napurulla - a similar piece is in the Art Gallery of WA.  My what good taste I have.  

This is the last day of 2011 and I will be happy to wake tomorrow with a sense of new beginnings.  I will not wake with a sore head, as people often like to, fair go to them, no, I want to face 2012 with a clear head and some good energy and start as I mean to go on.  I won't even bleat about my failure to blog as often as I'd wished.  Life has been busy and fulfilling, people are what matter, enough said, right??
I may get some posting done today though, given the leisurely pace of this hot and sunny day, lying about with the iPad and a cold lunch seems a good option, before I sweep and hose down my studio in readiness for the new, bigger and better kiln. I am about to pop out to buy myself a couple of Adirondack style deck chairs to sit outside the studio, soak up the evening warmth, with a G and T in hand, smell the roses (and so what if they need a good prune) and be happy with my lot in life.
I have a STACK of work planned for next year, lots of artist in residencies and teaching opportunities, lots of firm work planned. Lucky me.  One such plan which is underway is to make a large body of work of forms from the same mould - a big hemisphere 45 cm wide - how many variables can I design in the next year?  Very many is what I anticipate.  Crikey I might even get round to blogging about them!  

Suite One Studio: A 2011 Recap

Great to hear a potter is doing so well ....
Suite One Studio: A 2011 Recap: This past year has been remarkable. I'll start there. My business has evolved in ways I never imagined possible. Just over a year ago I mo...

Introducing ...

Hah!  You think it is INTRODUCING me!  But it isn't!  My eldest son is studying to become a library technician at Central TAFE in Perth and one of their exercises is to develop their own .... yes BLOG.  Emmet is a really good writer, very into detail.  Actually he is a bit like me, more about the process than the end result really.  So for those of you that know him, or are remotely interested in Gundams (best that you look it up or I will not do the subject justice in his eyes) here is the link.  


So proud ..... http://gianthumanoidwarmachine.blogspot.com/

sigh, again - a three blog family!!