Great Workshop Held at the National Art School on Feb 14 for the Artist in Residency Program

Great launch of the fantastic Artist in Residency program involving Cabramatta High School, Merrylands High School and Fairvale High School. National Art School kindly provided their excellent art space and ceramic facilities (THANK you Merran Esson !) so we could run workshops for the students from the high schools on the day. And a special thanks to Rach Kirsten for her wonderful help rolling out the clay and cutting the tiles so professionally!

The Zentangle Tile Project:
Clay was rolled out the day before the workshop on a slab roller. Tiles were cut out to the size of half an A4 piece of paper and stored between wooden boards. Blackwattle Grogged White Raku clay was used, as well as some Keanes White Raku.
During the workshop, students were assigned two tasks: Firstly, they were given markers and a piece of tracing paper and had to draw a simple Zentangle design, using their names as the main design focus. Zentangles are a meditative way of making structured patterns. It is a very easy and effective way of building creative repetitive patterns and designs. The method was created in 2005 by calligrapher Maria Thomas and her partner, a former Buddhist monk Rick Roberts, as a meditational art form and their website is: www.zentangle.com

The next stage of the workshop was for the students to use slips (essentially coloured liquid clays) to paint their tiles. The students were told to not worry too much about how to put the slip on the clay, just select a few colours that appealed to them and brush the colours on. They were free to do whatever combination they wished. These coloured tiles will become the backdrop to the Zentangle design, which will be applied to the tiles via a Laser Toner Decal.

This next images are of some of the tiles drying with the Zentangle designs underneath them. The tiles have to be fired to 1000 deg before a clear glaze is applied.

* Updates on this project will be posted when the works are glazed and laser toner decals made.

Decals

Some of my home-made decals where I have been trying to avoid solvents and the traditional Cover-coat. The Roof of Heaven transparency I used to make a silkscreen.

This work from the Kerrie Lowe Show earlier this year was refired with the boron white glaze and added another dimension to the night scene from Newtown.

Update on works

Some are still firing in the kiln right now. I refired some of the works with decals on them, as I wasn't happy yet with how my home-made decals came out. I took it right back up to 1020 degrees and curiously enough the commercial open stock decal sank in nicely. (The lovely gold decals from J.T. McMaster Screenprinting burnt right out). I do love the boron breaking glaze over the terracotta, recipe from  an old Australian pottery book....

And this is the other side, with a laser toner decal (which I teach how to do in my workshops), which curiously enough, went a darker shade of sepia on the boron base glaze, compared with its usual lighter-brown  hue on clear glazes. (My PhD uni books in background that I've been busy on lately.)

The image is from an 1888 wood engraving published in a French book by Camille Flammarion titled the 'Roof of Heaven'. 

A work in progress...

Worked on creating a square vase form from Blackwattle's terracotta paper clay today. Still trying out the stamps and level of impression/detail possible with paper clay. Brushed some white slip over it. I put my ribs out playing soccer on Sunday and can't sit down at the wheel and throw the forms I wanted to! So decided to handbuild the form instead.

Some new works - trying out some of the stamps I've been collecting, various glazes and decal techniques.....

The Art of Seeing Exhibition

Some recent works on show at the Kerrie Lowe Gallery, Newtown, Sydney. Part of the Heads On Photography festival. The title of the show was The Art of Seeing. Photography of my platters by Greg Piper.

Ceramics at Arthur Boyd's Bundanon

There are some wonderful opportunities to look at Arthur Boyd's ceramic sculpture at Bundanon, the studio and homestead on the Shoalhaven River that he bequeathed to the nation. I went to the Degas exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra during the Christmas break but was even more taken with the number of ceramic pieces now on display (including a work by one of my Gymea TAFE teachers, Lynda Draper) - and two large Boyd sculptural pieces in the revamped Australia section upstairs. Inspired, I travelled out to the Bundanon Trust property to find out more. It's well worth the bumpy drive 20 odd kilometres from Nowra (which is about 2 hours south of Sydney). The beautiful 1866 sandstone homestead building includes an impressive collection of Boyd's functional pieces made at the family pottery Murrumbeena, the sculptures of the mid 1950s and pieces he had made by potter David Blackall during the 1980s, then painted himself. The most I could glean about the large sculptural pieces at the NGA and at Bundanoon was that during the mid 1950s: "Arthur created a series of 18 ceramic sculptures, nine of religious theme and nine secular, all dealing with the theme of metamorphosis, transformation and change". There are also pottery ramkins from the Martin Boyd pottery and works by his brother David. It's astonishing that so little has been written about Arthur Boyd's ceramic work. Bundanon's website is: www.bundanon.com.au
The trust also runs artist residencies and special concerts.