A Flock Of Birds

There is a nice photo of some ceramic tiles i made for the Pigeonhole exhibition, over at the Pigeonhole Blog. What a nice evening the opening was, it even inspired me to attempt to "mull" my own wine.

sydney, some art, and a brownish area with points

In Sydney i got distracted by this great palm tree:
and my disappointment in missing Liza Minelli singing at the Opera House.


Here is my art at the Young Guns exhibition:


It's the two black rectangles with indistinct grey blurs on them. Sorry I didn't take a better photo. And to cap things off, here is some more stuff i've been making:


Now I'm off to Germany and the Netherlands for five weeks. When I get back I will get down to work. Tot ziens!

Love Bights

I'm back from Sydney! My eyes are sore from too much art. It was mostly good art though.
I enjoyed the spectacle and glamour of Sydney, but I'm happy to be back in cosy Perth/Freo. I loved looking at the Opera House, I could sit around looking at it all day. I loved the inside and the outside, I loved looking at the big ole bridge through the O.H. windows. But even so, I never get sick of the view from the top of Monument Hill in Fremantle, and even the Opera House has difficulty beating the sight of the ocean from the Round House lookout. Maybe it's because Fremantle has a view of the cranes, and we know how i love cranes.

That there is the Great Australian Bight. Probably the best thing i saw during the whole four days. My shonky camera doesn't really show exactly why. But it was very big, very shiny, and very, very bighty.

I will give a more topical post when I am not sleepy and guilty from avoiding real work.

Love this City

Excitement! I have a piece (or two?) appearing in the exhibition "Young Guns", an exhibit of international ceramic graduates that is a part of the Australian Ceramics Triennale in Sydney. I sent them off in a packing crate two days ago, and soon i'll be sending myself off in a similarly-sized economy seat, to attend the opening on the 15th of July. I've never been to Sydney before. I hear mixed reviews.

Meanwhile, i am making a piece for a cute exhibition at Pigeonhole, and also, my oil tanker is gradually taking form:

A series of tubes

The internets:


Those greenish grey markings are the result of something that was stuck on the kiln shelf. I may discard those ones or i may decide that i like it that way. At any rate i have some more bits going in the kiln on thursday and i'm going to start making the next batch tomorrow. I've moved on from pipes and i've started making rectangular things, but I will return to the tubes soon. I'm going to need a LOT of them.

Return of the Swamp Thing

I'm back! I've been getting sucked into the gloopy mire of a busy schedule, but now i'm going to be awesome instead. I've been getting a bit more work done at uni and I will show you once it's high-fired and shiny.

I visited Melbourne for a week-and-a-bit and whilst most of my time was spent at the Suzuki Convention, I made time to visit some great little galleries in the city centre, and a way-too-brief visit to the National Gallery of Victoria, where there was a jaw-dropping exhibit of ancient ceramic and stone artifacts. I also spent an almost shameful amount of time in the Craft Victoria shop, and came away with new posessions and new ideas.

I also came across a little shop on Brunswick St, selling a fantastic new art surface which is a bit like plaster, a bit like ceramic, a bit like a chalkboard... visit http://www.panelpop.com/ to have a look. I ended up buying a little framed square one that i have been playing around with. Drawing! It is fun.

If you build it they will come

Lame. I have done nothing that i could topically write about on this blog. I've been too busy with other, less cool things like essays and actual work that pays me actual money (as opposed to thecompletely illusory sense of making money that i get when i spend a day making clay objects).

I did read an interesting book review (err...because i am too cheap to buy the actual book) on Searching For Beauty: Letters from a Collector to a Studio Potter by Richard Jacobs. It's a really carefully considered review. I also love certain quotes that the reviewer has taken from the book, especially this one:


Art contains our insecurities and physical limits as well as our talents...We must reach definitions of excellence that forgive and complement the labor of our hands.


I am in two minds about this. On the one hand, I strongly agree. The individuality and validity of a personal style is something that should be factored in when aiming for 'perfection'. But is it in one's best interest to simply assume that your skills are 'limited' and can/should never be surmounted? Are we really capable of overcoming every technical barrier? This is a dilemma that i think about both in regards to my visual art and my other time-consuming pursuit, playing the piano. Classical piano and pottery are scarily similar; there is always a core group of masters who are completely dismissive of anything short of 'perfection' or 'mastery'. Can we redefine excellence or perfection to mean something that describes a person's limitations with absolute accuracy?

I don't know. I do know that i haven't done nearly enough throwing, handbuilding, or piano practice to satisfy the masters, but I wonder how much it will take to satisfy myself.

and i liked it.

I came across this quote on Monday:

Art is an ode to life;
It is not a form of entertainment,
it is a form of joy.

I have been sick the last two days, which has been bad for work and my usually amiable disposition, but good for my ceramics. I have been messing around with throwing and carving and there will be photos soon!

homes away from home

Well, the forms have been filled out: it looks like i'll be going Back 2 Skool in the next few weeks, as a Graduate-in-residence in the ceramics department at Curtin. I'm really excited about this! I get to use kilns and hang with old friends and maybe even make new ones! Most awesomely, i can use all the resources - equipment, library books, studio space - and i don't need to pay a cent. THAT's education.

Here's a few photos of my garage studio. You see: my work bench:

What you can't see: the ever-spawning community of daddy-long-legs spiders that festers away in the corners, under the bench, under my stool, in my storage boxes - and the accumulating mass of crushed spider bodies in the broom bristles.

You see: my wheel and wedging table:

What you can't see: The half-dismantled old car directly behind the chairs, mechanic's tools strewn hazardously across the floor, my brother spending half an hour hammering an engine part into what he later realised was the wrong place. Seriously. Boys. Can't live with'em, can't get free rent without'em.

Hi ho Silver, awaaaaay

Back in the saddle! I used my wheel for the first time today. I bought it from a lovely friend a while back, but since i lacked some other equipment i hadn't used it. Until today! I hadn't thrown any pots since uni last year, and i stopped throwing pots around September and focused on handbuilding. So it's refreshing to get back into it. My wrists aren't too happy about it though.
I took a photo with my phone but i can't figure out how to Bluetooth it to my computer. Fail.

Just makin it audible.

Today I had two people in two unrelated circumstances tell me to make them something useful. I love functional ceramics and I'm excited about making some in the near future. But if people keep saying to me "when are you going to make some mugs", I'm probably going to start feeling resentful. Maybe i could call myself a sculptor instead of a ceramic artist? Maybe sculptors get asked the same thing. "Nice object, but dude, when can you make me some shelves?"

I kinda get it, I mean, using a beautiful, handmade mug or bowl at breakfast is pretty much the most awesome way to start the day. I have all sorts of ideas for functional ware that i would like to make some day. But seriously. I had my art right there. I was all "Here's something that i put lots of time and effort and thought into!" And they were all "That's wonderful! So anyway, make me something that I can use. With my name on it."

I guess the point of this post is, waa.

Shipping Fragments

Some photos of last year's work, by way of introduction. This year i am following a similar idea, but in a manner which will hopefully be more concise and make better usage of gallery space.

Annie Get Your Blog

I'm going to try this again. Here is a blog, in which i will blog. This blog will feature photos of work, by me. And maybe other stuff too. Thanks for visiting!