Uclan premiere

I enrolled at Uclan for my MA in Ceramics in September 2023.

This the cumilation of my practical work during practice exercises to get us started!

I particularly liked the pinch pot demo, even though it is pottery at its most basic. Good to learn how to do it right! I even taught a complete beginner at my class, back home at Catwalk Ceramics. She made it seem easy.

Another revelation was how easy and satisfying plaster work was. This was my first time to make a plaster mould. I used natural objects such as seaweed gathered from the Northern Irish coast, shells, given to me by one of my students; (http://andreakershaw.co.uk - printmaker) and a couple of fish moulded stamps, bought from Francoise Dufayard's daughter, many years ago at Potfest in the Park, Hutton in the Forest, (Cumbria).

I used the mould as the basis of one of my "Stand and Deliver" vessels. I also added a sides, made using the "practice" methods by Gavin Webster. This was fun to do, but not sure it created a great piece of art! A lot of slip was involved, and cutting of slabs of clay using a spiral wire. Gavin's pieces were certainly avant-guarde and very immediate, but I don't think this type of ceramics is really for me.

"Stand and Deliver" was a project to make two vessels and the stands that supported them. One had to be a man-made stand with a natural upper vessel on top. The other was a natural stand with a man-made upper vessel. Both to contain food in our end of term Christmas buffet.

The terms man-made and natural are used loosely. They refer to an overall effect or detail of a natural or man-made object.

These are the stands and vessels I made, and the pleasure of displaying the buffet in these interesting vessels.

This is my seashore vessel, made from the inspiration from Gavin Webster's demo. I used wax resist to shield off areas of white spray, and the glaze is an earthenware ferrous glaze, suggested to me by Michael Eden from Victoria and Mike's book, "Slipware, A Contemporary Approach". The glaze is used by the Canadian potter, Jim Smith. I started the glaze investigations to really try and get away from lead glazes and have a Northern Potters' bursary to complete it. I will discuss the results at a later date. The clay is grogged white earthenware.

Below is the stand which the skyscraper/church vessel was balanced on.

Here is the microscopic organism, made with earthenware paperclay. I did enjoy the process and have since purchased some stoneware paperclay - so watch this space!

This is my original sketch. It is Astrionella formosa. I did this at the Freshwater Biological Association, on the banks of Lake Windermere. It came from the Fritch Collection, where every single alga in the world has been drawn or micrographed. They are filed according to genus. I feel very privileged to have had access to this, especially as it has since been moved and is stored currently at the National Science Museum in London.

Below is a bit of fun....a bowl made from drawings from the Fritsch Collection. My mother named it "Desmids on holiday" because of the bright colours. This is slipware using paper cut outs and slip trailer.

I have been quite enjoying slab building since coming to Uni. I find their clays very elastic and this is helpful in the slab building process. The inspiration is drawn from some church architecture and also a skyscraper in New York. My Mum, who has been so supportive on my clay journey, and I will just mention her best friend at Maryland University in the 1950's, Nancy Plum, who was head of the Art Department there and a Potter. Both of them were a big inspiration to me.

This is my model of Bollinger Kirke. Exhibited in its unfired form at Greystoke Church, Summer Exhibition. Thanks to Mary Chappelhow for firing it successfully!

Outside Mum and Dad's.

The church is Bollinger Kirke in Denmark. This is where my Great Grandfather preached. I thought that the two components of this stand and deliver presentation reflected totally different viewpoints of height, both physical height and scale, and spiritually and morally.

This is the man-made stand to go with the seaside deliver vessel. I have chosen carving because I had never done this before, and was encouraged by tutor, Rob Parr. This was following a visit to Blackwell Arts and Crafts House to view the Halima Cassell exhibition (installation) there. I thought musical notes creates visually a different sense (sight) to the notes which are already heard as sound. I hoped this would relate to my 'emotions' test tiles on which I have used braille.

The music portrays a Balkan Folk song.

I liked the carving process. (On a large, thick thrown bowl).

Above on the top of the musical notes I used a design I found in a catalogue of tile patterns, ( a lot repeating), which I had been given. This was from the Stencil Library, Stocksfield, Northumberland.