Tenmoku glazed bowl; dipped side on.

Glazed Friday night; taken out of the kiln 30mins. ago.
I was glazing late on Friday. It's Winter here and getting dark and cold early. Running low on tenmoku glaze and wanting to load and fire the kiln without making more glaze for the one last bowl; I took a new approach and dipped the bowl sideways. Purposely leaving a gap on the outside as you can see in the photo. I adorned this gap with some dots of different coloured glaze. I think I like it. I think I'll do it to death in the next firing.

tenmoku glaze recipe:
whiting 14%
kaolin 10%
silica 41%
potash feldspar 34%
red iron oxide 8%

Make sure you glaze the vessel thinly, or it will pin hole badly.

Glazed thin, it is super smooth and glossy and breaks to a typical tenmoku tan colour on the rim.

*I always add feldspar last as feldspar tends to settle like corn starch if put in first; making it so much harder to mix and sieve.

Tenmoku: wikipedia link.

Mudka: Decorated by Chris Pittard.

A "Mudka" made by Manohar Lul, and decorated by Chris Pittard. 

From the recent exhibition and auction of traditional Indian mudka at PanGALLERY.

For further reading about this collaboration please click here.

PanGALLERY archive.

Dark Winter sky; bright lights.

After a long day travelling; the photo I took resembled my state of mind.

Shoji Hamada.

Shoji Hamada

Japanese 1894-1978

Worked in England 1920-24

Vase

circa 1965 Japan

Stoneware

Collection of:
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Bottle vase 
(c. 1965)
Artist/s name
HAMADA Shoji
Medium
stoneware
Measurements
22.5 x 15.9 x 9.4 cm
Place/s of Execution
Mashiko, Japan
Accession Number
2003.141
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented through the NGV Foundation from the Bequest of Kenneth Hood, Founder Benefactor, 2003
1
Gallery Location
Not on display

Shiga Shigeo.

Shiga Shigeo

Japanese born 1928

Worked in Australia 1966-79

Vase

1970's

Stoneware

NGV: 150 years.

Promo video link.


NGV images online:

ceramics

collection areas

Crosshatched: India/Australia collaboration and cultural exchange.

I was particularly drawn to Lene's decoration of the "mudka" because it told the story of her collaboration and experience during her time in India. Linking form with decoration and India to Australia.
The cross hatching symbolising her home, Melbourne, and the iconic Fed. Square, Melbourne's home for Australian art.

This surely was a unique and successful collaboration between India and Australia; both gaining skill and understanding. Culminating in a wonderful exhibition at PanGALLERY and a silent auction with the proceeds to fund a more energy efficient kiln for their home village of Kumhaar Gram, India.

For further reading: Crosshatched 2011–mudka in Victoria, at craft UNBOUND click here.


Below are images and a statement from Lene Kuhl Jakobsen.

photo © Lene Kuhl Jakobsen

photo © Lene Kuhl Jakobsen

photo © Lene Kuhl Jakobsen

photo © Lene Kuhl Jakobsen

Statement from Lene Kuhl Jakobsen for ‘Crosshatched’.

Mudka title : Memento Terra.

The brushwork decoration on my mudka refers to the look of  traditional mudkas I saw in India last year when visiting villages and museums with other potters.

I have used the image of the bird/hand sculpture by  Le Corbusier situated in Chandigarh. There we also visited the fantastic and inspiring Nek Chand Rock Garden with its numerous mosaics and sculptures.

The band of angular patterns brings the mudka to Melbourne by refering to the Fed Square triangular designs but this could also come from the memory of fir trees with their spiky needles in the hills behind Andretta……..   

Exhibition and auction of traditional Indian mudka.

PanGALLERY

Closing Event Fri 29 April 6.00 - 8.00pm 

SILENT AUCTION - Please visit the PanGALLERY blog to view and bid on the artist decorated mudka.

Guest speaker Dr Kevin Murray, Adjunct Professor at RMIT, online editor of Journal of Modern Craft and a Vice-President of the World Craft Council - Asia Pacific

Please click here for further details.

Survey results, so far.

Ceramic tableware perceptions, a survey.

I have uploaded the results from the survey to my website.
Click here for link.

Please excuse my websites look, as I am still making it.
If you have not done the survey yet, but would like to, please click here.
If you have done the survey, I thank you very much.

Further to "Going black to be green".

...the more people that look at my blog, the more carbon neutral I become*.

*Based on my theory that:

1. You did not turn the computer on with the express intention of reading my blog.

2. You are either at work with the computer on anyway, or you have set aside a certain amount of entertainment/research time on the computer anyway.

Given that the above is correct: I have turned your web page from what is usually majority white to a low energy majority black. 

White = pixels on and consuming power.

Black = pixels off and not consuming power.

Survey.

I've made a survey to find out who to think of when making new vessels.


Please take a minute to follow the link and fill out the survey, so that my future pieces are more suited to you.


Please click here for the link.


I appreciate your effort.


*I have just refined some questions ( 7:15PM, 11th April 2011)

Going black to be green.

I've turned my blog site black today, as I realized with a couple thousand hits a month, even if you only look at my blog for a second. That's a lot of monitors I'm lighting up.

So to offset computer use, I've reduced the amount of pixels a monitor needs to use to show my blog. 
So the more people that look at my blog, the more carbon neutral I become*.

Above, are my Silex (Australian made) solar panels. I had them installed about 9 months ago now. I was feeling guilty about firing an electric kiln. So to off set this I decided feeding solar into the grid and taking back for a firing, was about as carbon neutral as I could be. So I think next to wood firers, that's pretty good, if not better.

While I'm professing my greenness.
I've just purchased an Asko front load washer, the most energy and water efficient one I could find. I also have an Asko dishwasher, again the most efficient one I could find. My lighting has been those fluorescent globes for over 6 years now. Though I am concerned about the mercury issue on disposal. Click here for correct disposal info.
My heating is either locally sourced Iron bark, Eucalyptus (a slow burning hard wood) Actually the wood I've been burning since last year was a tree that died as a result of the Bendigo bush fire. It's a fantastic wood to burn, two logs and I'm good for the day. My other heating is from  IXL Quasar Premier, Made in Geelong, Australia, they are those efficient electric wall panels.
So my purchase ethics are: buy local if possible, and as efficient as possible.
It will cost more money for the initial outlay, but will last longer and cost less to your hip pocket and environment in the long run.
I think we all need to do what we can to reduce our flow of cash to the oil and coal barons. I have no personal evidence that humans cause global warming; I'm happy to accept that we do. What I'd like to suggest though is even if global warming becomes a non event. I don't want my environment to be one of pollution. Here in Australia we are relatively free of car and industry emitted pollution., but I live in the country, and when I drive towards Melbourne, I always see a dome of pollution hanging over it. All those millions of people there are breathing in small particle heavy metals. Causing untold cancers and lung disease.
Even without the dire consequence of a debated global warming. The health issues caused by industry is undisputed.
Your future health has already been compromised.
Wow, all this and I'm not a Lefty or a Greenie.
We've been talking about Global warming since the mid '80s and we're still talking about what to do. It's now time to do.

Don't get me started on Urban sprawl though. I can't stand it, why do we keep chopping everything down to build McMansions?

*Based on my theory that:
1. You did not turn the computer on with the express intention of reading my blog.
2. You are either at work with the computer on anyway, or you have set aside a certain amount of entertainment/research time on the computer anyway.
Given that the above is correct: I have turned a web page that is majority white to majority black.
White = pixels on and consuming power.
Black = pixels off and not consuming power.

Penguin pourer, as vase.

My house smells lovely and fresh today. I've stuffed a penguin pourer with Eucalyptus foliage.
I have a few of these Eucalypts (Eucalyptus gunnii) in my garden. I love them because they never loose the leaf shape of a sapling Eucalypt; Therefore, great for floral arrangements.
I found one as a bonsai. I think I might have to give it a go.
Must make bonsai dish also.

A stack of bowls.

I'm now back at it. Lots of ideas buzzing round upstairs.
Hate it when this happens. So much to do and only two hands.

Bat Trang. A ceramics village with a photography exhibition.

Click this photo for a readable sized version.

A wonderful collection of photographs have been collected for an exhibition themed on the docks of the ceramics village: Bat Trang, Vietnam. It will open at the Bat Trang Communal House, 9.00 am on Monday, 14th of March. 
The Bat Trang Communal House is on the river bank, about 5 minutes walk from the Bat Trang Ceramics market. 
If you can't be there, have a look at the photos on the website. 
Bat Trang is 6KM South East of Hanoi, Vietnam.


Click here for a link to the website.


I have been privileged to be included, with five photos I took on my recent trip to Bat Trang, Vietnam in May 2010.

First bowl for 2011.

I almost lost the desire to make a bowl after a disappointing end to 2010.
But with this my first bowl for 2011. It's a late start, but I've decided I still want to make bowls.

Ps. I seem to remember that it's poor grammar to start a sentence with "but" but it was the only word that felt rite, wright? Or should that be right?

Pretty ugly grubs.

I have no idea what they are. They are bizarre though. Their legs are up one end and every few seconds they flick the other half.
I'm aware that my blog has diverted from ceramics to insects. The weather just isn't inviting for doing work. We've just had four days of heavy rain (just under 200ml) today's hot and humid as heck. I'm considering retiring from work until Autumn. Then again, I need to eat, so I may have to just put up with it.
It's not usually humid in central Victoria, it's all the moisture from the rain. So, I hope by Monday the humidity will have gone, and I'll be able to find some energy.
As previously stated, I have lots of new ideas. And I do have some very interesting places asking for some pieces. So, I'm actually a little frustrated that the weather is messing me about.

Ooh, do I have some of that Connoisseur Ice Cream (think I've just wrecked that New Year resolution for any Aussie reading) left in the freezer.
I'll get to that potters wheel next week, I think?

Added Monday 14th Feb.

I don't want to turn this into a creepy crawlies blog, but...

I think I'll just keep adding them to this post.
So many big bugs I've never seen are popping out everywhere. It's a whole new world with all this rain.

Added Thursday 24th Feb.

 100mm in length; left side is its head

100mm in length; left side is its head 

It's in this book somewhere?

A plate a day.

One of the greatest outcomes of blogging, is to find yourself mentioned on another blog.

Thanks Mignon!

Pot-less post; the story of an unloved wheel.

There are spiders hanging around everywhere.
We have had the wettest Autumn on record here in Central Victoria. Outside it's a symphony of insects, almost too loud. With insects comes spiders I guess.

I realised today, that I have not made anything since late November. The craving to sit at the wheel started a few days ago.
What's stopping me from getting on with it, is the fear that it's not like riding a bike.
Can I still throw a pot? Perhaps I should ponder for a few more days.
I certainly have lots of ideas buzzing around in my head.

The spider freaks me out too.