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
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.
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.
did you see my mom's website? i guess that's where you got the pictures from, but just in case: http://acornacorona.tripod.com/
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