4/22/10

Pottering around




These are from a few weeks ago. Mucking about in the backyard with porcelain. I have a show coming up at Craft Victoria next week. I feel a bit of a fraud showing pottery in the home of Craft, as I'm not by any means an expert, though I have been playing with clay since I were kneehigh.
My Grandma is a potter (amongst many other things) and she let me make a million little people, turtles and wonky pinch pots when I stayed with her on holidays. She would build a brick kiln in her backyard and do marathon firings, though it was only when I was older I was allowed to witness that dangerous activity. I still remember looking in through a gap in the bricks to glowing almost molten red pots. So hot.
There were years in high school Applied Art building many ugly pots and learning wheel throwing, then I also did Pottery as an elective throughout art school and have some incredibly dodgy sculptures living at my parents house to prove it. So painfully permanent.

I am still making wonky pots, I never really pursued symmetry, though I love perfect, translucent porcelain and perfect/imperfect Japanese stoneware.

Wonky. There is something quite endearing and amusing about them, though I know their ungainliness will appall some people and most likely embarrass me in years to come. For now, they crack me up. You can come see for yourself, from thursday next week. There will be lots of other things to look at too, and refreshments. More on that later.

3 comments:

pen said...

i do love raku
it speaks of earth, wood and hand
an haiku for dell

dell said...

Me too, and the word is perfectly evocative too.
Ra ku.
Haiku.

floating between the ages said...

oh dell!
you never cease to delight me.
i just thought you should know.
xxoo