Pottery

This is the batch from last term that were glazed this term. I'd loaded one of them up with celadon glaze which didn't take. I think I should've rinsed off the pot as it must have collected some dust between the bisque and glaze firings.

School Holidays

We spent a few days at Katomba recently and part of one at the Jenolan Caves. There are some striking examples of the forces of nature at work.

More pottery

Today I brought home the pieces I've made so far this term. I'd put green glazes over a white glaze but had done it so thickly that large flakes had come off in some places before they were fired. This led to more unpredicatability than expected. The first of the single images shows a piece that has green and transparent glaze without an initial white.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold

I find the further I go into this adventure with clay and fire the less I "get it". The beginning is centering - making the clay one with the wheelhead - balancing the forces at play. I can see and feel when the clay is not centered but only with luck can I push, shape and cajole the clay so that it is centered.

I wonder what there is to learn from this. My mood fluctuates through frustration, bemusement and exhilaration depending on what happens and the degree of control I feel I have over the process.

There is jackhammering going on nextdoor. A 200,000,000 year old sandstone outcrop is being smashed to rubble to make way for a townhouse. This afternoon I briefly escaped the noise, dust and vibration to sit in our car. By chance two poems by W B Yeats were read over the radio: "For Anne Gregory" and "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death".

Glazing over

(a shelf in our playroom)

Yesterday morning I glazed the rest of the pots I've made this term. Again a complex and multi-faceted business. Variations are endless and happy accidents as likely as carefully controlled predicatble outcomes.

It'll be next term before I get to see the results. I imagine I'll be more and less surprised than I think.

More pots

These are the other three from the first batch. Experiments with underglaze decoration. I'm not sure that I like the middle one. It has a cartoonlike quality that should have been predictable.

Feats of clay

These are two of the first batch I've made. When I first saw them I realised I'd lost sight of the fact that everything I do to the clay is recorded in it or on it.

I had the last but one class for this term today. This was spent turning the bases of the last few pots I'd thrown. They'll be bisque fired during the week and I'll glaze them next week.