Day 29

Some interesting effects from my test firing.

All the pieces were glazed with combinations of oxides with no other materials like the classic 1:4 Cu:Mn bronze.

This time I didn't want the metallic gold. I was after matt black, but I guess where you have copper and manganese it is going to try its hardest to happen.

Some look old and weathered with a quasi-ancient quality. Early Chinese pottery often emulated bronze forms anyway.
Sort of puts me in league with the fake antiquity market we visited in Jingdezhen.
Tick that box.

Yes.

Packed ready for the last Black Firing tomorrow. A beautiful warm day. Good weather predicted for tomorrow too.

Day 28

Playing the waiting game

Brick kilns take so long to cool down.

Tomorrow morning I guess.

Worked most of the day on the PowerPoint for my talk 1.30 Tuesday. Kind of definitive and up to date, which I have been putting off actually doing.

Have my 2 Sunday Schools on 6 and 13 April with Canberra Potters and will be able to use the PowerPoint again as long as no one from the dept comes. Might have to do a little tweaking.

"Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow....."

Day 27

Guess I am not in Kansas anymore.

Came to pack my kiln but there were only two shelves, so changed the bottom props and raided smaller shelves from another kiln.

Really miss being in my own studio today.

Day 26

Juggled work in and out of warm kilns and finally got everything into #13.

It sat at 85 degrees for most of the afternoon and then I switched it on. Some of the rings, especially 3 big ones, were very wet and had just been turned, so fingers crossed.

Visit from Judith Carswell and her husband, from AVID, en-route to a family wedding.

Did the guided tour. I sometimes feel that I have not done enough work, bit it is only when you show people what you have been doing that the work seems to mount up to quite a bit.

The black tests were promising so I mixed more of two of them. Should have bought some  Rados powder, but bringing small plastic sachets of white powder through customs gave me Schapelle Corby nightmares. Went on a wild goose chase to an art supply shop to try to buy some fixative, but managed to get a clear water-based gum from Officeworks that is similar the the old Stephens Spreader Gum (gum Arabic solution I think).

Googled Rados etc and they are all basically carboxymethyl cellulose or CMC (stupid me) which they already have here, but the students apparently only know it for its glaze suspension qualities, not its drying ability for ease of handling.

Mixed and then started banding them on.

The glaze room, the epitome of organisation.

Had regular Friday lunch with the Archaeologists.
Noticed this gate as I was heading in.

Was talking to Jean more about the Fictitious Culture PhD idea and I said that my intention was to not send Archaeology (and by inference - Lapita) up and not to take the mickey.

Her reply was that "there was a lot of mickey to be taken". Best Quote so far.

Day 25

A third day of rain.

Programmed Kiln 13 (with more than a little help from Mahala) and did a slow bisque readying for the Black Firing Tuesday.

Finished turning everything and put stuff on the warm kiln to dry overnight.

Christine took me to an opening at Beaver Galleries.
http://www.beavergalleries.com.au/

I asked Susie Beaver about the possibility of seeing any of Vic Greenaway's black pots from the previous exhibition that I had not found out about in time and later she arranged for an assistant to show me.

They were very beautiful. Totally unglazed with all the vestiges of throwing apparent. He lives in Italy now. The clay is a special fine terracotta and they are smoked in a stainless steel saggar in an electric kiln with a particular non-resinous wood.

There is something timeless and primal as well as highly sophisticated about them. They were wonderful to hold and examine.

Day 24

Reached half way.

Time for stocktaking and much soul searching.

Greg has moved my opening forward to Thursday 3rd April, "One day less...."

Black Firing booked for Tuesday. Tight.

Have a Vitrine aprox 1m square but only 270mm high.

Have decided to try and do a dummy run for my fictitious culture.

Went to the Classics Museum to research label style.

Kept coming back to this pot, Greek I think around 500BC. So simple and pure.

But this is 1000BC from Anatolia AND Black Fired

And there are some contemporary responses to Greek Attic Ware

Went to a local version of the WITCHES OF EASTWICK musical.

Great performances and costumes and an interesting idea for the set, being 6 periactoids.

But it let itself down technically. Very sloppy backstage crew, desperate to be visible and on stage. Pulled focus too many times.

And a problem common with AmDram productions - too many blackouts.

Clumsy set changes in blackouts were totally unnecessary.
Everything was on wheels and the orchestra was vamping in the dark, so it could easily have been choreographed and interesting.
The cast moved the periactoids in full view a couple of times, so the idea was there, poor direction spoiled an otherwise entertaining night.

Behind this, I think, is a well written show .

Day 23

Assembled and turned the bottles in stages throughout the day.

Have decided that the grooves go all over because the bare clay is a bit bland in the Black Firing kiln.

Black glaze tests for cone 6 put into Cathy's firing tonight.

On Cone bending duty from 6.30.

Day 22

Trying to think through a design style for my fictitious culture?

Bowls with feet like necks?

Or some unspecified ritualistic vessel?

Or maybe bottles?

Made smaller conical necked bottles in 2 parts to assemble tomorrow.

I think my culture holds the cone in high esteem as a metaphor for something? And their decorative motifs are based on the groove and concentric circles.

Decided to have another Black Firing next Tuesday, because that is what I proposed and came here to do.

My installation on 5 April should only be Black Fired work.

Day 21

Had a Wagnerian Day.

Brunhilde's Raven(s)? My neighbour anyway.

Listened to The Solti DAS RHEINGOLD on my iPhone.

Not the same as it blaring out into the bush, but apart from the odd vocalizing or humming at crucial moments, none of the others have any idea what I am listening to.

Got through the whole piece uninterrupted over the morning.

Have been asked to do a Masterclass at Canberra Potters over 2 Sundays. Am the featured act for their AGM to lure members.

Had to make a few ideas to remember how to do them for the class.

Bisque amounting up, ready for the next phase of black testing.

Discovered all the recent Metropolitan Opera LePage Ring Cycle videos are all on YouTube.

Had a field day.

Not quite the BluRay quality I have at home, but when in Canberra....

Day 20

Taking a day off to be domestic.

Washday at the Pa.

No Bush Rd washing line in the open air here. Dryers? No.

Flat has murals which look like 60's "creativity with clay" projects, but could have just as easily been made more recently.

Retro should be used advisedly as a stylistic option with clay.

Also there is an absence of storage in the flat  i.e. like no wardrobe, no drawers etc so everything gets left in a suitcase or hung in the air, like the set for a modernist ballet.

 "It isn't paradise, it isn't paradise, it isn't paradise, but it is home" (thanks A Chorus Line)
 and I am very happy here.


Watched a movie Warren Mackenzie made at St Ives in 1952 on a borrowed camera.

With no sound he later did a voice over. It is in 2 parts the original voice over and then a recent Skype interview over the same footage with the older Warren.

David Leach Throwing

Great insights into The Cult of Leach-ness.

Does anyone else see this blog? Just curious, not crucial, it is just an important record for me.

Day 19

I love the smell of sump oil in the morning.

The Beast down to 145 degrees.

First peep

Looks sooty to me

Definitely all covered in soot.

Very low morale.

This is the moment when I will finally be found out to be a genuine fake.

Plan B escape strategy. Room temperature glazes, car enamel, spray cans?

Have booked bisque kiln to get them back to normal bisque as before the sump oil.

Conveyed disappointment to Greg, who said it was normal and you had to wash them.

Klutz me.

A great success for my first go at Black Firing.
They have come out slightly iridescent silver/black and the grooves have different shading effects. Different to expectations, but new and exciting possibilities.
(Frank is not using his gas kiln anymore?)
Start stockpiling sump oil like MAD MAX II.

The biggest one cracked, but in retrospect one edge was very close to the burner, but it looks great on my wall.

"How the world can change, it can change like that, just with one little word....washing." thanks Kander and Ebb.

Day 18

Got The Beast fully on in the morning.

Proof.

In black and white it looks like a scene from Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS.

Got to 989 degrees (well almost 1000)

Greg confirming the temperature





Then the big moment


Fully sealed and the sump oil going in

and guess what?

No volumes of acrid polluting unburnt smoke. Less than an incinerator fire in the average suburban backyard.

A sort of sump oil coitus interruptus.

The green in me was overjoyed, but the firebrand was decidedly underwhelmed to put it mildly.

"Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow......"

Day 17

The Beast is packed.

 

Wadding to seal

 Lid on

 Pre-heat to dry out kiln for a few hours

My very first Black Firing.YES!

Decided on risking all or nothing (well not exactly, if they don't work as Black Fire work I can re-bisque them to remove the oil slick).

Not sure if this would then make them carbon neutral?

"Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow.....

Day 16

In Melbourne, the Ian Potter museum turned out to be a fizzer. Glad I had not stayed an extra day to spend there.

I had been led to believe that it held amazing collections from antiquity.

I asked and the staff asked around and did not know what I was talking about.

Three of the galleries were closed installing a big painting show.

But I read on their site that "The exhibition also includes objects from the University’s Classics and Archaeology Collection"

So maybe there is another collection of antiquity to see next time.

http://www.art-museum.unimelb.edu.au/exhibitions/exhib-date/2014-02-20/exhib/the-piranesi-effect

But in their only exhibition entitled THE PIRANESI EFFECT I did find some great original prints and bound books and also some Greek pots

But also part of the show was some familiar pieces,

Peter Robinson's polystyrene works.

Flew back effortlessly and packed my remaining raw work into the collective bisque.

BUT the reclaimed clay has not been the all encompassing success I hoped it would be. The multiple clays mix and the added grog should have made a very versatile body? Don't you think?

All the large conical rings cracked. Not a problem with my usual fine clay in my studio.

And I was so confident about what I was doing.

So I can fuck up too......