Ceramics

I have mixed emotions about ceramics - I wasn't very taken with it to start off with as I couldn't get the clay to work in the way I wanted it to work which infuriated me and made me want to fight against it, this I feel was particularly evident in the Raku project which I struggled with on a scale front as well as a building front.

It was only when I went away over Christmas, thought about things and spoke to my Aunt that I began to develop an understanding and appreciation for the material I was working with. this lead me to re assess my Raku project and take it in a new direction, that and I really got into the bird project - I've enjoyed the whole process and feel like I've developed and improved my ceramic abilities. I've especially enjoyed exploring the Aboriginal world which has influenced my work, as its something I had never really looked into before, but I have found it to be a fascinating area and I really feel it has pushed my work in a positive way and understanding more about another culture has most definitely enriched me as a person

Something I have been struggling with for the past few years is how to express my thought process and how to explain and extrapolate what is going on in my head. I have been finding it difficult to draw these thought processes and to explain them, because they never seem to look on paper how I see them in my head and I'm not brilliant at explaining my thought processes in a form I can get down onto paper as they are going on in my head. I think I have begun to understand how to do this after a lot of problems and conversations with different people - including one of my tutors Claire. I think in 3D this is partly because I come from a background of dressmaking, where I'm constantly making 3D items and therefore designing garments and solving problems in my head. I have never managed I find an easier way to work, which works for me, but I've never had to use it the way I am now having to use it on this course.

Claire suggested that a way to overcome this problem to a certain extent is to combine drawing with the making of mini sculptures which I can then photograph, draw onto and annotate. This idea made a light bulb go on in my head and I'm looking forward to trying out this technique, although I don't have the time to do it on this project, so it will have its test run on the next project I undertake.

I made a trip to the Ceramics Galleries at the Victoria and Abert Museum, this was very inspiring and made me truly realize the full possibilities in ceramics. I now want to push the techniques and skills I've learnt further. One of the things that really struck me was the idea of making items which at first glance appear to have a function, but actually don't, or have a very limited function due to the nature of the design. I feel I've begun to explore this idea with my bird vase, but that I can push it so much further with the next projects I undertake. I'm also intrigued by the idea of cutting out imagery from the clay before firing.

looking back now - although I am (from a personal perspective) proud of what I have managed to achieve and create I wish I had done more planning and drawing of my peices before hand as I know with a little more effort in these areas I could have created so much more, especially if I had know more about the processes and time planning involved in ceramics work. This was the first time I had ever really created anything using clay  - particularly as complicated and on such a large scale.

I have learnt so much from this experience though and now have a much greater understanding of time constraints, the processes and what is achieveable in clay so that any future work I create will be much more sucessful and planned in a more effective manner. I have also learnt a lot a bout the glazing and Raku proesses and their limitations - especially when it comes to Raku - I love the process and the look it can create, but I ended up creating pieces which are far to complex to withstand the firing process and be cleaned properly afterwards - this can be seen with my final Raku piece which I ended up glazing with the intention of Rakuing the leaves which accompany the main body of the piece. I would - if given more time - create something much simpler in its shaping or build it in more pieces than I did.

Ceramics - Handbuilding

On the whole I have enjoyed getting to grips with a new medium, despite the challenges it has provided me with. Clay can be such a malleable material, but it can also be very frustrating. Normally when I'm making something I have designed I will use a range of materials, and I will choose ones which will do what I want them to do, even if it takes some experimenting to get it right. Clay is nothing like that and you can't just swap materials if it isn't working, so I have had to scale back my ideas and designs in a way which will allow them to be made in clay.

We started the term with Racu - a process which is relatively quick, but the Kiln is pretty small, so as someone who likes to work big, I have already come up against a challenge of scaling back the size of my work, or building it in pieces to be assembled after the firing process. In many ways this has been a good thing as it has forced me to think outside of my usual box - as it were. I've tried both methods - scaling my work back, and also building in pieces with the intention of assembling it after the firing process. I have to say I don't like building in pieces for post firing assembly - i have found the racu process too inconsistent in its final look for it to work in a way I would be happy with - particularly for what I had intended to use as my final piece.

                                                               example of a Racu glaze

I particularly like the turquoise racu glaze we have been given to use and I feel I could spend several years working with it and not fully understand its possibilities.

                                                 Acorn by my Aunt - Ileen Yablon Gribble

                                                     Green Man vase by Virginia Harrison

My Aunt is a Racu ceramist so I have been back exploring her work and looking at the pieces of her work we have in the house, it adds a new dimension to them now I know how they were made, they always seemed magical as a child, now they are even more so because I understand the processes used to create them. I have also had the chance to look at the work of many other artists, all in their own way have informed my work, but I have found the work of Virginia Harrison (www.virigniaharrison.com) and Robin Currie (www.robincurrie.co.uk) particularly inspiring, and in many ways they have led me to reassess my work and feel the need to take it in a new direction. I have also found Claire Twomey to have some interesting ideas which I have, in part, used in my pieces - particulary the idea of creating many pieces to make one whole.

The Racu project for me started with Cathedrals. I was reading a book by Ken Follet called 'Pillars of the Earth' when we were given our project, it is set in Medieval England and centres around the building of a Cathedral. I have always found them to have an eerie yet peaceful and inspiring quality and reading this book added further dimensions to these already immense buildings.  I have such an admiration for the amount of effort and skill that went in to building them - they were real labours of love and must have been awe inspiring when they were first built - rising out of the landscape and seen for miles around, and I wanted to find a way to transfer this into my own work.

I came across some trees called Morten Bay Figs whilst I was in Australia and they have the most amazing root structures of any trees I've ever seen, combined with their great height, they inspired in me the same feelings I have about Cathedrals. I was really struggling with how to move this forward and had been playing with the idea of creating a piece combining the root structure of the Morten Bay Figs with the Cathedral arches and I'd built a piece using this idea. As it was too big to fit into the Racu kiln I'd had to chop it into three but I wasn't very pleased with the outcome of it once I'd got it back from its inital firing and so it has never been racu glazed.

I was feeling very frustrated by this project until I went home for reading week and visited Crowland Abbey, which is my local church, much of it was destroyed during the reformation, however the central aisle is still intact and is now the church used today. I go there to find some peace and think - especially about my Mother (who I lost to Cancer 5 years ago) as she was a great part of my artistic inspiration and drive. Whilst I was in there I spotted the Greenman which set me thinking about greenmen in general and how they are nearly always found in churches, they originate from when Britain was a Pagan Country and adopted by the Christian church as a way of reminding people that God is all around including in nature. I had suddenly found my inspiration and my project took off in a completely new direction.

                                           Part of my Greenman work - pre firing and glazing

In complete contrast the Bird project we had in the second half of the term provided no such problems. It could be because I was now feeling more confident with the material, but I felt the topic was much more directional and I enjoyed going through my existing photograph albums to find any pictures of birds. Australia came into play again as I came across the pictures of Piping Shrikes and Kookaburra's I had taken when out there and this almost immediately led me to start looking at Aboriginal Art and stories.

Much Aboriginal Art is created using the fairly simplistic 'dot' technique which creates beautiful work which draws you in and tells you stories about their culture. The story I was most drawn to is that of 'The Dreamtime' which is the Aborigine creation story and this story inspired such vivid and beautiful mental images that I have had some difficulty transferring them onto paper. I still don't think I have successfully managed this, but I hope that once I actually finish my final piece it will speak for itself and it will tell its own story.

My intentions for this project are to create a large vase which will have a bird wing shape to it with a picture I have created which ties into the story of 'The Dreamtime' and the idea of one of the Elders creating the bird species which now inhabit Australia. I will create the picture in dot art using coloured slip before firing and ultimately glazing my piece to bring out the colour.