Thursday 17 July 2008

G'Day,
Thank you to everyone for leaving comments for me when I was feeling down about blogging. You restore my faith.
One of the comments was from a fellow potter "Sorrow" who asked to see some of my pots. I found a few photos without my son's help and managed to put them up here.
The first one is of the mural I made for the new Multi Purpose Centre (hospital) in Junee where I lived until recently. I made it with as many of the staff As I could and who were interested, we had great fun. It is made of Buff Raku clay and fired to 12oo degrees celcius. No glaze except fro some brown slip to do the lettering on it. I love the warm biscuit colour that this clay goes at that temperature. I as a bit worried about the colour variation through out the piece but everyone was happy with it.














The mural in my little kiln ready to be unloaded.














The little fire house below was an idea I liked at the time but didn't prove to be good design. I carved it from a half block of hard raku clay that someone gave me. It has three floors at the back where I sit tea light candles that show up through the windows when it is alight. However the candles on the top floor get over heated by the candles below them and after burning for a couple of hours they catch alight. Which really looked great but wasn't real good O.H.& S. But I still like the idea of a fire house. He He.















The row of pots in the next picture are ones I made inspired by fire wood. I was thinking what a waste it was to burn such lovely wood that took decades to grow and how could I make a pot that would show its beauty and therefore preserve it. I made slabs onto which I pressed the rough cut wood surface to decorate it. Then made cylinders out of the slab and threw a neck to attach to the top of them. I took them with me to a raku lustre workshop I attended and they are glazed in turquoise lustre which reduced to a nice copper lustre in places.














Next picture same workshop. I like chooks and shiny glazes. This glaze was called "Queen Mum's Plum" There are some lovely plummy red lustres on these. The glaze at the bottom is a clear crackle. I like shiny too.

3 comments:

Martha said...

Love the pots and the firehouse. Cute story about it. I enjoy reading your posts and looking at your pictures. Talent and creativity in many forms.

Sorrow said...

Linda may~
WOW!
these are terrific!
The Raku pieces were so beautiful! You have a great balance between texture and shine! (and i love the Chook faces)
Thank you for posting these, I have a bunch of tiles i have been dreading firing, but after seeing how elegant yours came out...I am going to give it a go...
maybe even load them today!
(wont the person whose been waiting Months for them be thrilled!)

Anonymous said...

Beautiful ceramics! As I was reading and came to the part where you mentioned pressing wood into slabs, I thought - they would be perfect for raku! My favourites :)