Seven red dots

The show finishes this weekend and nothing will be coming back to me 'cos - THEY ALL SOLD! Yay. I hope they are all happy in their new homes.

Cover girl

Good news - they put my jug and bowl set on the Mother's Day advertising. Bad news - due to a very bad run of cracking bases, I only have four that survived. I'm going to try making more tomorrow but I'll be pushing it for Mother's day.

Exhibition update

I am now three weeks into the exhibition at JamFactory and am excited to say six out of my seven pieces have sold. They all sold within the first couple of days. Some to people I know others to complete strangers. I must say I feel a bit weird having people buy something I have made. A couple of people had already decided how they were going to use the piece they bought. One was going to make it her morning teacup. I am really pleased about this as I see these as functional works that should enhance everyday life. I will take some photos of the exhibition before it finishes.

Time management

I seem to be constantly time poor these days. When I went from part-time work/part-time ceramics to full-time ceramics I thought I would gain so much time. In reality, those extra days are spent working for the studio and I still only have 2.5 days to develop my own work. On top of that I have been asked to production throw some little tea bowls for the studio range. Each little bowl currently takes me about 8 minutes to make. I then need about the same amount of time to trim. At $1.50 per bowl I have worked out I earn about $5 an hour. The aim of course is to take less time per bowl which will in turn make me a better potter (and more money). The main production potter at JamFactory takes 1 minute to make the same bowl. I don't think I'll ever be that fast but I'll give it a try.

I'm back

Ok, so I'm a rubbish blogger. Life just overwhelmed me for a bit there and something had to go. Work has been full on, we have just decided to build a house and need to sign up before the gov't rebate ends in June, my Dad is less than well so blogging was not the 1st priority. I still have the same pressures but I've got my head around it now so hopefully I'll be more effective. We'll see...

1st exhibition

I am hurriedly trying to finish and develop new work for this exhibiton. Things are coming along nicely but its a bit tight. I'm firing a kiln tomorrow which will hopefully produce some work on which I will apply my "Deconstructed Decals". I'm still playing around with the inlay decoration I tried out on Sunday and hope to have a few of those ready in time too. It means squeezing in about three firings next week but I think it will be worth it.

Breakthrough

For ever I have been a doodler - when I'm on the phone, in a meeting or on my own at lunch I sit and scribble away. I quite like my little pictures and have been trying to find a way of working them into my ceramics. I've tried painting with a brush but I can't get the same feeling or quality of line. This morning I decided to have a play with a bit of inlay. I scratched some lines straight into the unfired pot, filled them with coloured slip and scratched it back to reveal - yay - my little pictures. I'm a bit excited about this. It feels the most me out of anything I have done.

Deconstructed Decals

I have been stressing about what sort of work to put in the exhibition I have entered for April. I have wanted to do some decoration with decals for a while (decals are printed images you apply over the top of a glazed piece, it is then fired on and becomes permanent). Most commercially available decals are of the old country roses type and can look a bit twee. My challenge is to apply them in a fresher way and make it more appealing to a younger generation. I think the cup in the middle (where I have chopped up the decals) is on its way towards this. I have made some small bowls and beakers and will be experimenting more with this idea in the next few weeks. Lets hope I am happy enough with them as they will be all I have to exhibit - no time to come up with anything else.

Result

I have produced a new batch of my Australian Porcelain pieces. You may remember I was working towards a deadline so Robin, my Studio Head could take some samples to Sydney to show a potential stockist. That stockist is Ross Longmuir of Planet Furniture and I am excited to say that he liked my work and bought it immediately. I'm overwhelmed by such a positive confirmation of what I'm doing. This means I'm on the right track and my aesthetic is not only my own taste but other people like it too. I still have a lot of work to do though. There are refinements I need to make and I have to get faster at making these pieces otherwise I'll not have the time to make anything else. I'm also conscious that I need to develop new work so I'm not a one hit wonder.

Finding the balance

I've had a difficult time over the past couple of weeks since my last post. The teapot weekend really took it out of me but I continued on the following week not taking a break. I even put my hand up to do a couple of 7.30am starts to get some kilns on early - I wanted to be keen and help out but did so at the expense of my own rest. Hence I went into exhaustion meltdown. I still managed to do some of my own work but I haven't been nearly as productive as I could have been if I had been looking after myself. I was a zombie at home and you couldn't get a decent conversation out of me. So, I've had a couple of early nights, some sleep-ins and even managed to get out for a run last week. I'm feeling a lot better but I need to watch it in future. Even though I'm "living the dream" I still need to ensure there is the right balance of work and rest.

Teapot Workshop Part 2

Wow, what a weekend. Stupidly I forgot my camera today so was unable to document Day 2. It was a full on day with all demonstrators trying to complete the teapots they started yesterday. Stephen Bowers even managed to decorate, fire, glaze and refire a teapot in two days. And the whos who of the ceramics world even managed to make it in - Prue Venables, Patsy Hely, Liz Williams, Kirsten Coelho - I felt like such a ceramics groupie.

In between all the loveliness of watching great ceramists at work I was also working myself. All the associates were in charge of keeping everyone happy and fed so we were kept busy putting food out, making teas and coffees, cleaning up afterwards and starting all over again. I have been up at 6am for the past two days baking muffins for morning tea and was given the scary responsibility of cooking the BBQ lunch. Then there was the clean up afterwards - wiping down clay covered surfaces and throwing wheels and mopping floors. Needless to say I'm pretty spent but I don't care as it was an absolutely fabulous weekend.

Teapot Workshop Part 1

I've had an absolutely fantastic day today. We have four ceramicists in demonstrating teapot construction and decoration. I was lucky to be assigned to assist Ann Linnemann, a Danish Ceramic Designer who was making thrown teapots. In between having to set up lunch and afternoon tea I was able to sit and be mesmerised by her amazing skill. She threw 22cm spouts for goodness sake. In porcelain!! That is very hard to do.

Here are some pics of the work in progress. Tomorrow she assembles it all.

Deadlines

We have just found out the studio head is off to Sydney in two weeks and wants to take samples of our porcelain work to show a potential stockist. All very exciting but it means I need to produce a good version of my jug and bowl sets in all sizes (sml, med & lge) and colours. You need to make about five of each thing to ensure you get a perfect one and there are six pieces in the range - thats 30 things I need to make, dry slowly, bisque, glaze and fire by next Friday. I'm not complaining as its all good practice but eek!

Trimmed + handle

Better

New Shape

Monday is Studio Day where the Associates work for the studio helping to make the production range Terra Australis. It is also a day of cleaning, reconstituting clay, vacuuming kilns any job that needs doing really. Lucky for us we finished up mid-afternoon which allowed me to start working on some of my own work.

I really like the shape of this teacup from my parents' old Noritake dinner service (before it was relegated to the back of the cupboard and the ubiquitous Corelle took over). This is my first try at replicating it. The foot needs to be trimmed so it will be a bit narrower at the base but I think there is more work yet to be done. I will spend the next two days trying again and again and again until I'm happy with it. Then I need to get the handle right.

End of Week One

Well its been a big week. Most mornings consisted of welcome lectures, OH & S talks, show and tell by the studio directors etc... The afternoons were devoted to "studio time" which in the ceramics studio involved reorganising entire areas, lifting heavy equipment, painting walls and lots of cleaning. All very well except for the 40+ degree heat and inadequate air conditioning. Needless to say lots of showers and changes of clothes were had. And I slept well. I even managed to make the beginnings of ten jugs (trimming and handle making will complete them next week). Today I'm exhausted but looking forward to that cool change tomorrow.

Sorry no pics for a few days. I'll take some next week.

So what is a JamFactory Associate?

Just to give you a bit of back story, the Associate program at JamFactory is a two year professional development program for emerging craftspeople and designer/makers. JamFactory needs to make money (it is only partially government funded) so the idea is for Associates to spend 50% of their time helping their studio produce work for sale, run workshops, anything that will bring in an income. The rest of the time is for Associates to spend developing their own work. By the end of the second year, it is hoped each Associate will have built up a profitable working practice.

There are four studios at JamFactory: Ceramics, Glass, Metal (which includes Jewellery) and Furniture. Its a fantastic place to have this opportunity - JamFactory has two retail outlets, a wholesale department which markets Australia wide, gallery spaces to show exhibition work plus PR and Admin departments to back this all up.

Read more about the Associate Program here.

Putting myself out there

I put my hand up yesterday to be included in an exhibition at JamFactory. It's set for 1st April, which in ceramic terms ain't that far off. So I now need to produce some work for it - eek! I figure this pressure will do me good and not allow me to rest on my laurels.

In other news, I found out all my jugs and bowls in the Australian Porcelain show have sold. There are still a few blue & white soba cups left but I hadn't invested as much time in those pieces so am not concerned. We have a post exhibition chat next week to discuss where we go from here. My studio head Robin Best has also got us a gig in Sydney mid-year. I expect I'll be making a whole lot more jugs and bowls for that.

First Day

This is how I felt going in this morning, like it was my first day at school all over again. It also seems to show my preference for unneccesarily large holdalls from early on. I still carry the kitchen sink with me.



When I arrived I saw this outside the studio door which gave me an immediate sense of belonging.

So it all starts now...wish me luck.