LOTS TO SHARE

AS I haven’t blogged for a while I have a headful of things I’d love to talk about.  How about I start with the most recent, and work my way back.

First of all, the Mud Colony potters are talking about their favourite tools.  So these are my standbys that I wouldn't be without.  Note my name on everything - it is too easy to lose tools in a teaching situation.  

A brass tube about 12cmm wide for making holes in things, 

A handmade bevelling tool, courtesy of my friend Trudy Golley of Red Deer College, Alberta.  

A scoring tool, just sewing needles set into drilled holes in a piece of wood - given me by Britte Stolle Jakob.

A soft red kidney from Mud Tools - any tool by Mud Tools gets on my list.  

My spirit level used for all manner of reasons, 

and finally a very sharp and pointed tool I inherited from JulietteVerdel Kesener, a Dutch potter who moved back home from WA and who gave me her studio contents when I bought her little kiln.  

Last week  work ie Central Institute of Technology, Perth, Western Australia (CIT) held their annual Advanced Diploma Visual Art & Jewellery Design Fundraising Auction.  I’ve missed the last few due to other commitments and now I see why it is such a memorable and desirable event to attend.  The auction took place at Gallery Central, ie the larger TAFE gallery on Aberdeen Street, where a pink shipping container intersects the building’s entrance - quite the landmark.  The planning and admin was handled so well I have to take my hat off to the level of commitment of the students who organized the whole thin and tadaa what was up for auction, student work – for definite, work by their lecturers and support staff at CIT, and donations by former staff, students and supportive parties.  Supportive parties?  I mean people like Master Artist Pippin Drysdale donated FOUR of her pieces – that kind of woke people up.  All sold rapidly.  Tony Jones, Sculptor, Sandra Black porcelain master, Fleur Schell of porcelain story telling fame ...  I’ll show you to invitation to convey the quality of the donors. Their generosity was incredible, so supportive and community minded, but I can't include links to all of them.

And yes, I bought!  It seems to be the season for it.  It is how I like to shop, I don’t go hunting, that part bores me, I wait till the season is right and the cream of things come my way, and it did. 

I got really lucky and bought a student painting and a lidded porcelain jar, about 20 cm tall by Sandra Black with an exquisite crackle glaze over it.  I mean it is to DROOL over.  I have to find a purpose for it so it can truly be used and not just looked at.  Yes Sandra is a great pal of mine and I’d go so far as to refer to her as an informal mentor.  I have at least five or more of her pieces.  My Facebook friends in the clay world – you know who you are – weren’t sure I really got so lucky so I had to photograph the latest piece for them.  I call it clay porn – and that’s okay!

This is the weekend of the annual Fine Art at Hale show, beginning with a lovely cocktail party preview and open to the public for two days after that.  I am heading off soon to collect any work that didn’t sell, a pal said I scored lots of red dots so that’s cool, and to pick up my second Amanda Shelsher piece.  I will share an image of that later once I have it home.  I have to stop now, no money left! Well, until the next time.  Please join me now at the Mud Colony Blog to see what else is happening in clay.