I heart Glazing

I find myself again making work at a community centre type place where there are a number of glazes provided. This facility has an ample selection of blues, greens and browns. Cobalt, copper, and iron. They are fine - but i'de like to mix it up a bit with a bright purple, or a super thick matte.
Gotta push it further.

Bridge Over Mossy Waters

Here's a little five minute excercise I did the other day. A mini raw clay bridge between two bricks on the side of the street.

i feel like a hobbyist

I've been doing a little bit of handbuilding at home and a little bit of throwing up at Northcote Pottery. I say that I feel like a hobbyist because I am using brush on glaze (and not doing much work). I'm sure I must be learning something now that I won't realize or use until later.
I have been enjoying figureing out what types of graphics/imagery/pattern I like. For example, the 'brick cloud' - I like the contradiction of rectangles making up a soft organic shape and of things heavy, regular and manufactured floating and shifting.
Here are some snapshots, taken very unprofessionally, on my couch.

Al2O32SiO22H2O

I just realized that i haven't posted any photos from a show way back in August of 2008. It was a group show at Plank gallery in Vancouver. The theme was raw and clay and the participants were myself, Marianne Chenard, Juliana Greaves and Claire Henry. I think we all enjoyed the experience and having our final pieces be unfired as the technical considereations were much different, as were the concepts. I was able to build the large ladder that wouldn't have fit in any kiln that i had access to, and likely would have cracked in a firing anyway. Claire was able to build her piece (of many tiny pieces) directly onto the wall. Marianne and Juliana combined efforts and made sink and tiles - usually fired ceramic objects - and presented them dry and with a leaky faucet slowly erroding right through them.

Park Passtimes

Second hand yarn, found sticks, and a couple of hours.

step ladder to watering hole..

alley miniatures

Alright, so I've recently relocated to Melbourne, Australia. I've gone from having access to a glaze lab, electric kilns, wheels, and extruders to having access to a store where i can buy clay, and perhaps fire pieces for $5.50/Kg - about 15 minutes away by bicycle, uphill. This has caused a drastic change in work. Although I was interested in miniatures before, now working small is a practical necessity. Also, I haven't been firing the pieces - for a reasons or two beyond the most obvious. At this point they are sketches, not completely thought out as far as style or location goes. Also, I am enjoying the fact that they might only be around for a day before a rain comes and washes them away - perhaps someone will see one, perhaps not - lots to sort out "contheptually".

This image is of a mini ladder reaching from ground to drainage pipe, in a back alley in Melbourne. Ladders are loaded items - they symbolize the race for prosperity (climb the corporate ladder), they carry superstition (walking under a ladder is bad luck), they are tools, they raise a person up... In the miniature they combine any of the previous ideas with the little people - the ignored, forgotten, or minority, (or the magical, if you prefer to think lightly).
Right?

West Point Grey/Summer work

These are some mugs and bowls that i've been working on at west point grey. It has been fun working mostly with their stock glazes and mixing in a few of my own as well.

while studio-sitting at Jasnart

I'm studio-sitting/shop-keeping part-time at a studio/shop on Granville Island while Jasna, the artist, is away on a residency. It is grrreat to have a space to work, and because the facilities are limited and different from what i'm used to, i find myself working quite differently - handbuilding and low firing. These are pendants.

RRR

I think tire swings are interesting.  

Their purpose shifts drastically from car-part to toy.  

They are reminiscent of summers when we were 6 years old.  By making mini tire-swings and hanging them in public places i hope to make a few people smile.  

I've started with a couple of low traffic places, like this one here.  It is along a path at Jericho Park.  Eventually I will place them in different sorts of environments.   

Emily Carr Undergraduate Exhibit '08

work from my final term at ECIAD

This is currently my favorite cup, although i've a kiln to unload tomorrow! It is spin-able and has some gold on the bottom.

I've made a few realization lately - you'd think they would have been obvious to me earlier! a) most of the 'viewers' of my work are friends and fellow ceramicists, not abstract mean people - so there is not much sense in trying to trick, when i could be delighting. b) I also haven't been making objects that i really like. Much of my work from the last term has been quite clean and cold. Spring is here and it's time to warm up - even allow myself to (drum roll) decorate!
These little cups i think would do well with liqueur in them. There is a pivot point on the bottom so they can swivel around some.

Geva 410

Spin bowl Sept 07

Reamers Oct 07

honeydew Nov 07

Nov 07

lemonade set, dec 07

Geva 410 work, Sept to Dec 2007

For my studio work (geva) at ECIAD i have been working with issues of functionality, movement, display and still life and others. I began the term by making bowls that spin (well, people spin them, they don't spin themselves), then i made some rocking plates and bowls. Next I began trying to deal more with the underside of the pieces, by not making undersides at all, but another side with another use. Although I was very interested in the objects and object making, it was pointed out to me that the context in which i displayed them did nothing. This is when i began looking at a lot of still lives, both 2D and 3D versions. You may notice influences of Juan Sanchez Cotan or Tam Irving. I attempted to integrate shelves and tables but i thought with some of the shelf pieces that i was moving too far away from utility. The last piece that i was working on during the term was the lemonade set, where i was trying to include formal and visual aspects of the still life, but still retain the quirky utilitarianism that i enjoy. These pieces were made on the wheel, sometimes throwing out of a mold.