Glaze testing.

FROM TOP 1. Copper oxide slip and red iron oxide slip. 2. Tenmoku glaze.
Later today I'll make a Shino glaze. I put some red iron oxide brush work on a leather hard bowl on Friday, and at the moment I'm bisque firing it. The red iron oxide should come through the glaze and make an orange. Cross fingers for me.

Southern Cross Station.

I went to Melbourne by train this week. On the trip down we stopped at Sunbury for about 20 minutes waiting/hoping that a faulty signal would be repaired. The conductor joked to a colleague that they would normally hand out free tea and coffee, but they ran out of hot water before Bendigo. Finally they threw us of the train and onto coaches. I had upgraded to first class for the trip and now I was crammed into a bus with screaming kids, not happy!
The trip back was better, but I almost missed the train taking these photos. I thought I’d take a look around as it was a 30 minute wait on a cold platform for the train. While upstairs from the platform I heard an announcement that my train was leaving. By the time I had run down the escalator the announcement said stand clear of the yellow line, the train is now departing. I found an open door and leapt through it, just as the train started rolling. It was a nice ride back home, but a cold walk from the station.

Landscape bowl.

You can see it, can't you? A lake, some mountains etc.

Bowl with blemish/optical blue glaze.

If only every blemish was so perfect!

The British Museum.

CRAFTING
BEAUTY IN
MODERN
JAPAN.
I went to this exhibition last year, and was very disappointed (not with the exhibition, that was wonderful)that I could not take any photo's. As I could not afford the accompanying book, both financially and for it's weight(travelling to Europe with a 20kg. limit is near impossible)I did get a number of pic's of the vessel just outside the exhibition entrance. I think this piece (I'll attach the photo later, it's on a disk, somewhere) was probably the best anyway.
Luckily I discovered the book on Amazon. So, my advice when travelling with weight restrictions. Don't buy it if you can order it later.

Pan Gallery 001. more...

FROM TOP 1. pan gallery. 2. bowl by lene kuhl jakobsen 3. 3 altered vessels by andrew widdis. 4. beautiful raku vases by judith roberts. 5. plates on wall by chris plumridge, large porcelain bowl by phil elson, far left by sandra bowkett far right by wendy reeve. 6. foreground pedestal andrew widdis, katie jacobs and lilach mileikowski.

Kimono: Osaka's Golden Age.

Kimono: Osaka's Golden Age
Until 14 Sep 2008
"Discover breathtakingly beautiful kimono and accessories from the glory days of Japan.
This extraordinary exhibition, highlighting the wealth and prosperity of the Edo and Meiji periods (1850-1900), is showing exclusively at the Immigration Museum.
Direct from the Osaka Museum of History, the stunning collection celebrates the Immigration Museum’s 10th birthday and 30 years of the Melbourne-Osaka sister-city relationship."

IMMIGRATION MUSEUM 400 Flinders Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

http://museumvictoria.com.au/Kimono

I went to this exhibition yesterday. Wonderful, highly recommend you pop in if you can. The Kimono's are very subtle. Also on display are some wigs stating the various status of children, servants, married women with and without children, interesting. Other various items of dress are on display too. And I now think that dressing gown I bought (The hotel I stayed at in Tokyo provided, and I was too scared to accidentally on purpose pack it) is a yukata. And I now know that it is wrapped left side over right, for both male and female.
When you've had a good look at the Kimono's, there are a couple exhibitions on Melbourne immigration. Ships and things, though I did not get a good look at this as the person I was with was concerned about the parking meter. Parking inspectors in the CBD are ruthless. I think they are personally assigned to each meter. Because they get you the minute the meter runs out!