2009 v 2012

John mentioned to me how much he liked the vase on the left, made in early 2009. I realised that I had had the stripes motif in mind when I made the landscape jug on the right quite recently. Is one better than the other?Has the work 'improved' over the past 3 years? I like the jug more but the vase has a certain organic feel. Perhaps I am more inhibited as I have got older. Less free with my construction.

old iron

The old iron has revealed a delightful logo - a clue to its origin. I googled "Bristol Crown" and apart from numerous references to the Crown Court in Brstol, there were only two hits much like my interest - when and where was it made? I am sure this is probably the original roofing iron on our 90 year old house so it has lasted a long time.

Scaffolding for the new roof

This went up in the rain and then it rained some more, in fact for 2 weeks, most unusual for Dunedin. The new iron sits on top of the lawns up the back and I know by the time the roofers have done their work, we will have dead grass. As the forecast for next week predicts yet more rain, who knows when #3 will lose its glorious addition.

John, Reuben & Sam

Exhibition pieces preview

After weeks of making and then bisquing plus two glaze fires the last of these being a somewhat catastrophic event, a few pieces have emerged which will form part of my Quadrant exhibition as well as being submissions to the Portage. I used a new mid-fire white clay which I obviously pushed beyond its point of no return in order to get the best glaze results which culminated in two vases exploding with some collatoral damage. Nonetheless, there is enough salvageable. Here is a pic of some of my 'thaw' series taken the day out of the kiln and assembled on the dining room table.

A 20kg bag of clay

Out of the kiln

and yet to be properly photographed and posted to portfolio blog.