Slicing and stacking

I’m contemporaneously documenting a couple of hours in the studio today while I’m confronted with clay slices of different stages of drying and treatments - some have been left onsite so are warped and covered in animal prints and grass/leaves. The top slices are very plastic and the bottom slices almost off the plastic stage …

Drystane dyke tutorial

A quick note to put down what Keith and I talked about for feedback regarding proposing the series of boxes - wall. I emailed:- I've translated the vernacular structures, such as the dry stone wall, in essence to signify - strength, balance, shelter, boundary, layering, protection. I want to create vessels that explore this - …

What are wild structures

These words are from the dictionary of the Scots language: http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/hut. The terms of which are in common usage unlike the Gaelic which is more common in the highlands. Drystane dyke doocot: pidgeon hole usually near eaves in a building, structure to house doos cot: humble dwelling, cottage, workers housing belonging to employer fauld: an …

Wild structures

Sketching through the structure of a drystane dyke, the large foundations, stones diminishing in size as they go up in elevation, chocs filling space, occasional large tie stones often at the corners, capstone layer at the top. Gaps left for wildlife. Last sketch of the night, so should be last in the line of sketches, …

Project brief for Ceramics 1

I'm going through the handbook for Ceramics 1 trying to focus on what I want to work on for this module. It begins with a personal project brief. I have begun the module looking at the Holburne Project and developing the flasks, which I will continue with, but I would like to develop what I …

Holburne Project: vernacular structures

Featured image: Dry stone wall, Holburne Museum Grounds (Affleck) Photograph, 09/01/18 The wall surrounding the immediate museum grounds is a dry stone wall: I had a look on the website of the Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain (http://www.dswa.org.uk/about-the-dswa.asp) accessed 19/01/18, to see if there was any vernacular terms in the south-west, but there …

Holburne Project: collecting samples

I took the opportunity of being in Bath for the Research Methodology presentation on the 9th January to collect samples of Bath stone and have a look for samples in the grounds of the Holburne Museum to add to the body of the travel flask. A quick background to Bath stone: Bath sits on a …

Local clay bodies

Atelier NL (http://ateliernl.com/) Tile map of clay samples from Noordoostpolder region of the Netherlands http://ateliernl.com/projects/polderceramics, accessed 26/12/17 Atelier NL are based in the Netherlands and spent a year collecting soil samples from all the farmers in Noordoostpolder region. Using this clay, they have a range of ceramics that use local materials, use traditional ceramic functional …

Additions to clay bodies

Ceramic artists who add collected and found objects to clay bodies   Virginia Pates (http://virginiapates.blogspot.co.uk/) The Lower Parking Lot Porcelain, thrown and altered, with inclusions of dirt from the lower parking lot of the Annandale Campus of Northern Virginia Community College, fired to cone 6 oxidation, 2014. (http://virginiapates.blogspot.co.uk/) accessed 26/12/17 This is a pot with …