Merry Christmas

Just made last post on Monday with my Christmas cards.
Merry Christmas.

Dissertation Draft

Handed in a 5,500 thousand word draft on Friday. It's a bit of an ugly duckling at the moment but has the potential to grow up into a beautiful swan. I hope. Wish I'd not asked Jo Dahn what she meant by draft, and that she's not replied that it's whatever you've managed to do. I'm a woman who works to deadlines, and I lost a little of my required sense of urgency.

My writing was mostly fuelled by Key Lime Pie and Pepsi Max...

A got over her writer's block with gin and Quality Street...

J used the power of Wotsits to help with the flow of thoughts. Family packs were on special offer...

And M went the traditional route with coffee, coffee and more coffee. So much coffee that she couldn't keep still enough to type or read. A little self defeating. I'm going to survey the rest of the students and see what their choice of poison was.

Oldfield Artists

First Arts and Crafts Show of the Oldfield Artists yesterday. It went really well. Made lots of sales and got really useful feedback on the things people liked. People want to know really practical details about whether unglazed surfaces will stain. If I'm selling functional rather than decorative objects I need to expect these questions.

Best sellers were the small porcelain thrown jugs. The brighter, glossier colours were most popular, and all the blue ones sold...

Lots of slip cast jugs sold too, along with some matching sets...

And J's button bowls looked great and sold really well...

Thanks to R for organising it all.

Serendipity

Serendipity is an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. The effect by which one accidentally stumbles upon something fortunate, especially while looking for something entirely unrelated. Or the attitude one chooses to adopt when opening a kiln after a disastrous firing.

The enamel colours ran but I've decided to quite like it. Serendipity.

Lid Spout Handle

Finally finished my slip cast cups, jugs and sugar bowls today. Painted on the enamel glaze and loaded kiln. Started them months ago, as extra casting, fettling, glazing and printing practise. Should be ready on Wednesday.

Kings Norton Craft

Had a stall at a Christmas market on Saturday, at Saint Nicholas Place, in Birmingham. The grammar school, Saracen's Head pub, 12th century church and Tudor century merchant's house on the green in Kings Norton won the BBC2 Restoration programme in 2004.

I sold a lot of pottery there on Saturday. My prices were fairly cheap and cheerful and I have to recognise that I was the only ceramicist in the room, so didn't have any competition. Really lovely to talk to people and watch their reaction to my work. Even if they just handle a piece and think about buying it, it's great to get a response. Really nerve wracking too. Not quite comfortable yet saying this is me, this is what I make, and this is good stuff. I suppose that is because it's a really eclectic range for sale; the end product of lots of different projects. I don't know who I am as a maker yet. And I can see all of the flaws and know that each project only took me so far, and many skills leave much to be desired. I'm at the beginning of a very long journey. Good to have to think about display, business cards, organisation and pricing work. Good to talk to other stall holders too.

 

Got another sale on Saturday 28th November, at Oldfield Park Baptist Church in Bath. Part of a group called Oldfield Artists. There will be other ceramic artists there, so that customers will have more reference points and be more able to make judgements about quality. I'm more of a quantity person at this point!

1000 words

Wrote 1000 words of dissertation last night. Decided that I couldn't go to bed without a word count so I started in the middle of the essay. Just need some more middle, a beginning, an end, footnotes, photos and a bibliography now. Sorted.

Loaded enamel kiln today. I'll see what it all looks like in the morning. Technician very patient while I asked many many questions. Brick on or off? Rewarded him with a bit of a Jo tantrum this afternoon. Surprised me as much as it did him.

Put enamel transfers on some slip cast work from last year. I cast some more after the assessment because I wanted another attempt at all the different processes. Much to improve. Hoping I've stuck the enamel transfers on the right way round this time. Nobody told me there was a front and a back. Best to presume I know nothing.

Been looking at the work of C.J. O'Neill. My tutor pointed me in her direction last week. She cuts text out of the plates, which might be something I could do with some paintress names.

Andrew Tanner, a designer and manager of what's left of Poole Pottery, does the same.

Been wondering about a wall full of eclectically decorated plates, reflecting the different styles of decoration and skills of the paintresses. With their names...where?

I'll check my enamel kiln tomorrow, and do some throwing.

Glaze test dinner service

JS sent me this picture from our visit to the Royal Worcester museum in the summer. Painted some more glaze saucers and plates, using other plates to clean brushes and mix the glazes. Need firing now. Asked a fellow student what she thought of them, and was told that I can always fire the glaze off if I need to. Cheers.

                                                

Some of the red pieces have ended up looking unintentionally meaty I think. Which reminds me - I've been using turps and fat oil to mix the enamel glazes, and have been wondering about the hideousness of fat oil, and whether I can find an alternative. Will Google it now. Hope I don't discover anything too revolting.

Too many jugs

Lovely visit from Mum. Number of jugs accidentally purchased recently brought sharply into focus, as there are so many she has not seen. In my defence, I need them for my dissertation research. Is is bad that I've arranged them onto different shelves according to whether they are thrown or cast? I think it might be.

Tutorial earlier in the week went OK. Bit of a misunderstanding about a random photograph of a teapot in my sketchbook, which both tutors have latched onto and is not what my throwing project is about at all. Will remove from sketch book and hope is not seared into memory of tutor. I've got to be much quicker with my throwing I think, and break the process down into the different stages. Last pieces much too formal.

In the mean time ventured into the decoration studio. I've been collecting images of glaze test plates from museums and galleries. Like these from the Gladstone Pottery Museum in Stoke.

 

                                 

                                 

Bought lots of 10p Royal Doulton saucers this week to experiment with, and I made glaze test plates. Also going to fire the plate I used to clean my brush on, and the saucers I mixed the glazes on.

Will sort out an enamel kiln tomorrow.

Drawing and throwing

Catching up a bit. Missed a tutorial on Monday and rightly told off twice by tutor. Bit of drawing while I think about what I'm going to do with the list of women in the ceramic industry...

Started some handbuilding that is going nowhere fast, and then some throwing with porcelain. Haven't thrown for three months or more, so all a bit wobbly to start. Made a mini moon jar...

and have left some pieces hanging upside down overnight to see what happens. Don't like them as individual vessels, but like the curves very much and will see if they do anything as a group. Now have odd muscle aches from wedging clay and carrying too many things at once up and down the stairs to the throwing room.

Had a good dissertation tutorial, and now have to plan in some days to get writing.

Accidentally bought a victorian wooden cake stand from antique shop. Bit of a bargain I think. Going to use it for displaying pots at the sales in November. Here it is with three Adam Buick moon jars...

Finally, found this picture of thrower Shozo Michikawa and his dog, and need to find out more. What's going on? Is the dog potting? I want a dog.

Dissertation procrastination

Wednesday went to Stoke for last research trip before writing dissertation. Met up with the second years who were visiting museums, factories and galleries in preparation for their slip casting project. Was meant to join them for a tour of the Dudson factory at lunch time but a university administrative error meant that they weren't expecting us. Luckily had booked a tour of Burleigh for the afternoon, so left the second years, tutors and friendly Dudson security guards for the Middleport factory.

The Burleigh factory is proud to still be using traditional underglaze transfer printing methods, and even some original 19th century machinery to do this. It was fantastically dusty and messy, and I loved it. Our tour guide Gemma was passionate about Burleigh and was a pleasure to listen to. Here's a picture of the transfer paper being printed:

The transferrer has to apply it within two hours of it being printed. Great to see the human face of the world of internet shopping....

The factory building is listed, and is full of now redundant equipment. Rooms full of moulds (they stopped counting at 15,000), now gone out of fashion or collected from closed local factories. Warehouse full of cast hospital equipment such as inhalers and invalid cups, finished just as the NHS moved away from using ceramics. And empty rooms, photographed for the exhibition Breaking the Mould as part of the British Ceramics Biennial in Stoke. This exhibition might imply that Burleigh is an empty building, but it's full of life, history and flowery stuff. Accidentally bought a little black calico jug.

                                             

Thought about the Burleigh building a lot since my visit. What if I was able to exhibit my paintress project in one of the empty rooms? What if I could use some of the transfer designs on some pieces celebrating Burleigh transferrers? What could I do with some of those ceramic inhalers and invalid cups?

Went to see Fresh at the Bridgewater factory, which features recent BA and MA graduate work. Great to see work of Ai Ono and Esther Hubert there. They worked in my studio last year and graduated in July.

See their work at http://aiono.co.uk/ and http://www.estherhubert.co.uk/

Tutorial

Tutorial. Wibbled on a bit, but there were moments of coherence and I'm pleased with my project proposals. Will be working on a piece to celebrate the women workers in the ceramic industry in Britain, past and present. This is my dissertation subject, and whilst writing I’ve collected a long list of women’s names that I want to use. And I'm going to continue with my throwing, and revel in my lack of control. I want to form edges and surfaces for bright, shiny, fluid glazes to pool and drip, and for the pieces to show the energy from the wheel. Time to get messy.