Today is one of those big ones age wise.....

Thought I would quickly go down to my favourite place today and take some photos to add to the morning pictures of family and gifts for my big 60!    We have had some blustery weather and many trees toppling under the onslaught.   The little stand of beach paperbarks are slowly secumbing to the pounding waves despite their huge lateral roots clinging to the sand.  There was safety in numbers and the entertwining root systems held them together but last year's huge tides and rough weather broke this combined force and they are slowly falling prey to the ocean's fury.   We are all part of this ever changing world - how lucky am I to have had 60 years of living and a great family to share it with.

Sunset Inspiration

Just some of the wonderful colours which inspire this.

Special memories of 'the walker' leaving his footprints in the sand will always be in my heart.

Glaze making to pass the time???

Had a busy day yesterday but I'm glad I managed to get all these buckets of glaze replenished while a bisque was happlily firing away. I hate, hate making glazes but once I start I quite get into the swing of it but wearing a mask makes it a hot job. I even decided I would make a couple of new ones up. I have never had a chun or good celadon so here's hoping they will turn out - testing in the next firing. I rarely sieve my glazes - don't think I'd make so many up if I had to face that the next day.
Here's proof my little shed needs replacing, its barely holding together and the chimney has really suffered in the past couple of months. We had light rain on and off and luckily I only had to divert water once away from the damper and that was in the earlier stages of the firing. I am glad the wet season is all but over as I wouldn't attempt firing with the leaking chimney. After such a long day the dog and I decided we would take a walk on the beach. I haven't been down to the actual beach in ages and have missed the sand and salt air. Midnight couldn't believe we were actually going down the hill to his favourite place and kept running doing his doggie checkout thing. A lone jabiru was out on the edge of the sandbar 'fishing' - that majestic loner seems to typify the peacefulness and solitude of the beach at dusk.

The paperbark are all in flower and the smell is sickly sweet but such an attraction to flying fox - we had a noisy night in the backyard with the continual squabbling over the blossums and tonight I can hear our night visitors back again.
A little someone was happy in this big sandpit planting his sticks and exploring with plenty of chatter about this new place.
We were all out here so I could film my shedbuilder (No. 2 son) practicing for the Finke Desert Race (the shed building has to wait until the wet and this event is over). I am definitely not a bike person but here I am perched on the back holding his huge camera being ferried slowly to a good vantage point. The little person in the pit crew loved all the noise and greeted our return to the car with clapping and a wide grin.
Unloading tomorrow so the week will be busy glazing and reloading but I have my one annoying burner to take off and clean - another job I try and avoid but I couldn't get it to light even at high pressure so it will have to be cleaned properly. This is what happens when months lapse between firings so it pays to keep the kiln functioning. I have a few pieces in a rich red clay and two pieces in the local porcelain so I hope they survived the bisque along with the most important pieces - the dinosaurs!!!

Working......

Michael Kline's 12 to 12 plus walking here
finally got some hands dirty. Little hands also made their first pot. Now I have to get down to business and stop procrastinating. Yesterday was a dry day so all pots are trimmed and a few jugs even have handles but today is different - humid and the odd shower - am I looking for excuses here?

Nature is full of surprises - tucked away amongst the paperbark roots was this multi-coloured mangroove seed (I have never seen one with such a varied palette), standing tall while its mates were gathered on the high tide line in a jumbled mass.

Weipa goes to Sydney

These are some of the pieces which have journeyed to Planet. Hope city life embraces them!

I am so fortunate to have inspiration overload up here and the raw materials on hand to use and make these pieces unique. Southern Ice gives such a beautiful translucency to the forms and works so well with bauxite. I still have to make up my local porcelain using raw kaolin - unfortunately its still slightly tainted with the bauxite but I am sure I will get an unusual workeable body.

Camera and pots!!!

My photography is always a struggle - especially with the reflective light bouncing off the shino and my wonderful blue black 'Milky Way' series but now the camera has failed me. Remoteness makes these things all that more difficult as the nearest 'hospital' is in Sydney so I will be walking my beach without this constant companion.
Porcelain 'Milky Way' dillyThe images never do this wonderful glaze combination justice - there is so much refracted light it hinders the contrast especially on the porcelain body. Sunlight works magic and I so wish I had the equipment to capture these works properly.

The little shino basket, glaze rolling back off the underlying bauxite over a local clay mix.
Shino, bauxite and a 2 glaze green always works to capture the local monsoon colours.
Beakers - these found some good homes - shell marks highlighted with the bauxite and multiple glazes over a local clay mix create interesting responses.
Local clay filled with its abundance of iron works so well with two little soy pourers.
Southern Ice Porcelain, beautiful and impurity free, and I go and add something like bauxite to change that crisp whiteness but it works so well, the transluscency accenturating the bauxite markings. When the camera returns the dilly forms will find their way to the paperbarks just on sunset - 'dilly inspired porcelain basket with its found woven soft coral handle sits quietly amidst its fragile surroundings, reflecting on the past indigenous women who gathered along this pristine shore for thousands of years leaving only their footprints - if only we could do the same.'
My AvantCard postcard - "CallingAllArtists.pdf"