The Owl and The Pussycat

My current project has seen me busy, busy, busy! I'd use the comparison of a bee, but as bees feature, I think that may be overkill.

I’m now at the stage with my Master’s that I have a loose goal, and it is time to start working towards it.  The journey will be tangential with lots of detours, crossroads and arguments with satnav along the way.  I may even stop for lunch now and then.

Essentially, I am looking at ‘narratives in clay’, or storytelling in 3D form.  It sounds so simple written like that yet is anything but.  Putting aside clay bodies, glazing and the actual stories, I need to research and explore methods to achieve my goal, matching them to my skillset and abilities.  Most importantly, I need to enjoy the processes so that I can take said methods forwards for my creative practice.

I’ve started out using my usual stoneware clay, Arctic White, and stuck with hand building.  If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.  With the former, I may change my mind depending on roads I travel, with the latter, I suspect I will stick with my strengths and hone my skills further. I long ago learned throwing is not for me and I love hand building.  Bring out the slabs, the coils and let me get jiggy with mud!

I set myself an interim learning goal via way of a Learning Agreement, as per my MA requirements.  I have to say, I find these LAs really useful.  It’s literally a great format to get out of my head the basis for my project.  As a relevant aside, my current assignment has seen me chatting to ceramicists and attending many lectures with guest speakers.  I have learned a wealth of information that will assist with my own practice, including how to draw on my prior skills as an ICT Teacher.  One aspect, supplied by Sarah Lynch (Interior Designer), was the Campaign Cycle, a graphic that outlines the process for a marketing campaign.  It reminded me of the System Life Cycle, the structured approach of managing IT projects, that I taught for so many years.  Merging the two has given me the basis of a project structure for ceramics that will team perfectly with the LA style of detail.  For an organised, logical type of creative, this approach is truly floating my boat. 

I learned much from Sarah and really admired her take on her career.  She has remained fluid and adapted as required around motherhood and personal goals, always bringing forward skills and contacts she utilised previously.  It resonated.  Equally resonating and in a similar vein, was Carolyn Corben.  Her approach to her career was to see what unfolded and to try her hand at anything.  She draws on a strong craft-based skillset learned both through formal study and self-learning.  It gave me much to think about and I could find similarities with myself.

I digress.  Back to the project I wanted to write about.

I set myself the goal of making five pots that would all have a different surface design process forming the basis of my research.  The pots would practice my hand-building and provide a 3D object, and the techniques and methods employed would broaden my knowledge and experience.  I’m virtually completed with all five now, bar glazing and finishing and I’ve learned muchly.

The story at this stage is less important, so I opted for The Owl and The Pussycat, a favourite childhood poem that is remarkably visual.  I then adapted my clock designs, shortening the heights and switching them to lidded pots.  This led to one pot looking like the shape of an owl.  I eventually opted to slip this in black before applying some freehand sgraffito in the design of an owl.  Test four was accomplished with little effort.

But I get ahead of myself.  Pots one – three need to be discussed.  For reference here, I have only fired everything to earthenware.  Nothing needs high firing and the processes were the point, not the temperatures.

Pot one I named Dumpy.  This was to be clear glazed and have decals applied.  As it turned out, I accidentally used a white earthenware glaze and applied it badly.  As it was only a test pot, it wasn’t the end of the world for either error.  Lessons were learned though, and my next application saw me concentrate far more.

The decals were completely new to me.  I did some research online and asked a fellow student who had some experience with them.  Ultimately, I just cracked on with the instructions from the printers.  What I did learn was that for printing on ceramics, all the work is in the preparation.  The designs for the decals were AI generated (see separate blog) so that no copyright was breached.  I prepared my artwork for the printers and sent it off.  It was with me in only a few days.  The application was really easy with just a quick soak in water and sliding the image into place on the glazed pot.  It gives Stokie Bloke’s work a whole new appreciation. UPDATE POST GLAZING

Pot two I named Wonky.  For this, I decided to work with sgraffito.  I’ve not really tried this before, so I did a few test tiles off the top of my head and had a go with Wonky.  It was not a great outcome.  I definitely should have researched sgraffito as an art form beforehand.  Whilst I was reasonably neat and controlled with the cutting techniques, my designs were poor and lacked any real thought.  I did the required research of others work, particularly enjoying Simon Olley, Heather Elvidge and Vivienne Ross.

Rob leant me a book to read, Slab Techniques by Jim Robinson and Ian Marsh.  In it I found an interesting section utilising a stencil, a straw and a couple of slabs of clay. Essentially, you join the two slabs at the edges and blow up the middle using the straw.  After sealing, you press the stencil onto the top and the air pushes the clay through the shape.  I decided to make test three a tile using this process and set about making a stencil in mountboard.  When my inflated clay was leatherhard, I applied black slip to the background, leaving the foreground blank, and sgraffito’d the details into what I referred to as the cushion.  The results were interesting.  When fired, I then used copper oxide to highlight the details, opting for a monochrome effect overall.  Finally, transparent glaze was applied.

Which just leaves box 5, again not a box.  Moving on from the cushion method of embossing, I decided to try pushing the same design into a simple clay slab.  This kind of worked, but not in the way I expected.  Whilst I thought the design would be pushed outwards and rounded, it is pushed inwards and fairly flat.  I don’t dislike it.  I cut the clay into a long slab and then made it into an oval, overlapped vase.  I still liked the idea of monochromes, matching the original illustrations from the poem that were pen and ink style.  I filled the detail with black slip and used sgraffito to gain detail.  I decided to make this test piece an amalgamation of several methods to see the overall effect.  I also made the decision to add one splash of colour, the pea-green boat. UPDATE UPON FIRING AND ADDING DECALS AND OXIDE WITH GLAZE