MUDHEART POTTERY BLOG

did I need a Rest....

Well after a good couple of weeks of pottery and the Club Exhibition I go off and roll my ankle stepping down one step - tried to walk then hobbled and finally lay down on the cement! I must have looked a treat as a couple of people apparently walked into the building - must have thought I was inebriated and sleeping! So I have had to keep my leg up and take it easy - that's not so simple and I have read all the weeklies - oh how exciting they are. Thank goodness Aleta had been given some for work - I wouldn't spend money on them but they have provided some distractions for me.

Couldn't resist putting Nicholas on here in his cranky pants nappy - he's usually in his huggies so Nona (me) had great fun putting him in a proper nappy! He is one this week and trying to step out so won't be long before he is walking properly and the words are starting to come out. Each day he seems to do something else and he is always laughing and has us in stitches too. How I love this little bundle.

Here he is with Dad - big grin always.


Now for the pottery - had some great pieces come out - still love the shino and the miniature landscapes it forms on my pots. I know the big handbuilt pieces dominate but there is something to be said about a small teacup in one's hand - the senses stirred with a small delicate piece are hard to beat. There is such beauty in the little areas of shino, oxide, glaze and bauxite.
I will never tire of the shino and bauxite combination. Have been itching to get out there and I can't do anything, even handbuilding comfortably. Thought I could at least get something going but the aching foot says no!

This little teacup is a gem. I did try and abstract a birdlike form with glaze and oxide and although it didn't show clearly it still is a painterly piece wth some beautiful colours formed with the shino movement.


Matt black and shino - always stunning on a large or small piece. The bauxite pieces in the shino colour the trail and the crawling forms its own landscape. The local clay gives extra dimension to the glazes and feel of this small piece. I had to make it my own! I can hear Bruce sighing again - more pottery...


I have never been a lover of the browns but there is just something about this set which attracts me - I think the cobalt spots are such a contrast - I try to add these to the glaze when it is still moving so they pool, just as the tide pools on the mudflats as it recedes. The local clay has small impurities in it and these leave telltale marks in the pieces. I always try to use a favourite shell
from the beach to alter and mark my pieces - even if the user doesn't realize I know and that is what's important. I have left my own little environmental mark!


Another little handheld bowl - it just begs for closer inspection and being small this is so much easier. I have added kaolin so it sits like oyster coated rocks in my landscape and the shino washes around like the incoming tide. These are such fun to glaze and I reapply the shino and add extra glazes and oxides while the shino is still wet and thick. My hands do most of the work and little drops fall to fill spots with pools of colour. It takes ages but its so worth the end product.



Here are the tall pots with my mess all round! - so good to handbuild every now and again. My doodling at the pottery shop on a Thursday night paid off with the green pair. I love the glazes over the bauxite and the trailing glaze on top. They seem such a regal pair and at the moment like all of the pieces here, I can't part with them yet! The matt black trio with their shino splashes worked well. I want to do more of the coil combination - the Lost Cities in the Northern Territory provided inspiration and also the little mudmounds on the beach are coiled up the same way. This was what I was hoping to get out and do this week as well as my teapots for the Sydney Teapot Show but I will just have to be patient. I have a firing to do for Thanakupi as well but she has another couple of weeks before she needs her pots. We both always work so much better when we keep each other going.
Perhaps I should be doodling...... Did I need this rest.....