The Southern Highlands Arts Trail and Open Studios Pottery sale is on again this weekend and the next. This also coincides with the Australian Ceramics Assn Open Studios on the 2nd weekend in November. So we will be open for both weekends, the 4th/5th and the 11th/12th of November.
We have done our last few firings and are cleaning out the pottery, scrubbing, mopping and polishing. For this Open Studio sale I have been concentrating on being as sustainable as possible in our process. Almost everything is fired using our electric kilns and our solar electricity. This is quite a change for me. I usually work in reduction atmosphere, and will again. However, to keep everything as sustainable and light footed as possible. I have decided to only fire in the electric kiln using our extensive solar power and Tesla batteries during these hotter and more fire prone months. I am slowly slipping into a cycle of making and firing reduction wood kiln firings in the cooler months for the July sale using our own bush fire scorched and dead trees as fuel, and then solar electric firing for the November sale when wood firing is too dangerous.
This means that there will be a big difference in the work for each sale. The chunky, rough, fire flashed bodies and unglazed surfaces of the wood kiln, vs the softer, glazed all over and brightly painted glazed work from the sunshine fired work. Both are sustainable and very low carbon the way that we have organised it. I aim to be carbon neutral where ever possible.
The last few firings that I have done for this show were lustre firings to add a bit of extra colour and shine, plus a little bit of pure gold here and there for some added ‘bling’. I never used to decorate very much, relying almost totally on my locally collected rock glazed celadons and guan glazes, combined with wood firing for the soft and subtle understated effects. However, since the fire and the almost total change in my life and circumstances, I’ve taken an interest in painting and colour.
This change was slow and complex, but aided along by some very good trauma therapy and the fact that I was gifted and box full of china paints and lustres from a local potter who passed away recently. I’m continuing with my theme of ‘from flames to flowers’ leitmotif.
I worked through 3 slightly different colour palettes from yellow/green hues, to two tone blues, through to purple mauves.
I like them all but perhaps I will keep one of the yellow green cups for the kitchen for our own use.
I’ve also made some breakfast bowls and coffee mugs in different shapes, tall narrow and short and wide.
I think that I might have reached peak flower now!
As part of the sale weekend prepping and general spring clean I cleaned and re-oiled the big hand made wood slab table. I milled it from our own pine tree that was burnt in the fire It looks brand new again now.
We have almost completed all the paving around the pottery now, and the flowers are blooming along the garden in front of the pottery along the driveway.
November is fast approaching. We will be opening our workshop for the first two weekends in November for the Arts Trail – Open Studios event here in the Southern Highlands. We have been getting ready for this open Studio sale since the end of the last Open Studio sale in July.
Straight after the last sale, we had our 1st throwing workshop weekend in the pottery and then got stuck in straight away making new batches of clay, so as to make the new work for this show. I wrote about it here on the blog in August. < Pugging ClayPosted on >
We spent September throwing, turning that new clay into pots. We had to be strict with our selves, as there is always so much to do here throughout the year dealing with seasonal events like pruning and making marmalade, before we left, but we got the pots made. We knew that we would be away for a lot of October doing a geological survey of potters materials in New Caledonia, so all the work needed to be made and bisqued before we left.
As soon as we returned we were solidly back at work in the pottery glazing and decorating those pots. Again on a tight schedule, as I was asked to give the 10th. Ian Currie Memorial Lecture to the Ceramic Arts Queensland ceramic group. I gave the first lecture in the series a decade ago, and they asked me back to give another lecture, this time with a theme of sustainability, but also to give a weekend workshop on making glazes from local raw materials. We had decided to drive up and back, so as to call in and visit all our relatives along the way. Folks that we hadn’t seen since before the fire, COVID and the lockdown, so we had to allow a couple of weeks for the trip.
We have planned the 2nd half of this year pretty well. So now we are back home again and doing the last few glaze and gold lustre firings ready for next weekends sale.
We came home to find a wealth of lovely things that had matured while we were away. The flower garden is still in bloom, the strawberries, cherries, mulberries are ripe and ready to pick. We got out of the car, unloaded the boot, put the washing on, then started watering the garden, picking fruit and lifting the garlic. No time to waste. Everything needs to be done now, so we have to schedule our time and energy appropriately.
The garlic is ready to lift.
We lay it out on a metal rack to dry for a week or two before platting and hanging ready for use.
We have about 150 mature knobs this year. A small harvest compared to previous years. We have lifted up to 300 knobs in a good year, but I’m not complaining, any garlic is good garlic when it’s home grown.
By the time we take out the best 20 knobs for replanting, there will only be enough to last half a year.
We have had a cancellation in the first ‘Make and Scratch’ sgraffito workshop on the 25th/26th of November. If you are inrterested in filing this place, please email me at <hotnsticky@ozemail.com.au>
The workshop is titled Make and Scratch, and will be a hands-on Making, throwing and decorating workshop concentrating on Sgraffito.
Janine and Warren will be leading the workshop and demonstrating their techniques of sgraffito decoration. I will be assisting with the throwing part of the process.
Over the weekend we will be demonstrating throwing and slab plate making techniques to be painted with coloured slip(s) then decorated using the ancient sgraffito technique of scratching back through the slip to reveal a contrasting clay body colour underneath.
Day 1. This workshop is aimed at potters of beginner/intermediate level of experience. We will be beginning with a design exercise on paper to develop a graphic motif for you to carve into your pots. Please bring your design ideas portfolio with you. We will be throwing cylinder forms, then flatware forms that are suitable for sgraffito decoration. We will also be rolling out a few slab dishes so that everyone has a chance of getting a few suitable forms stiff enough for slip decoration and sgraffito on the second day.
Day 2. We will be spending most of the 2nd day in decorating mode practicing our sgraffito decoration.
Wood fired and sgraffito’d work by Janine King
Slip and sgraffito piece by Janine King
Graphic sgraffito mugs by Warren Hogden
Overview.
Sgraffito can be elementally simple, just carving straight into the clay surface. This is a very effective technique for pots that are destined to be wood fired, where the carving enhances and enriches the natural wood fired surface. Other glazing options are to carve into the surface and then glaze the pot with a celadon, or other transparent glaze. Celadon and other similar glazes pool in the crevices and get darker and richer with the carving.
Alternatively, a contrasting slip can be painted on the clay body and then carved through to reveal a contrasting decoration. We will be using our homemade Balmoral white stoneware clay body and homemade black slip. If you have a special interest in using a particular underglaze colour scheme, you are welcome to bring your own underglaze colours.
You will need to bring some design ideas, a sketch book, a 5B or 6B soft drawing pencil, your throwing tools and something simple to share for a communal lunch. Tea and coffee will be provided.
At the conclusion of the workshop. I will be offering to bisque fire 2 of your best pieces for you.
We have been very busy since our return from our research trip to New Caledonia.
We had made a lot of new work for the end of year Arts Trail – Open Studios sale, before we left for the trip.
The Open Studios, Arts Trail is on the first 2 weekends in November, so save the date.
Now on our return form Noumea, we have been flat out busy glazing and decorating that bisque ware and have two kilns packed ready to fire this weekend.
I have spent the past week painting. The motif is quite complicated and involves building up a surface of 20 different colours to create depth in the image
We have to be busy, because we are driving up to Brisbane shortly to deliver the 10th Annual Ian Currie Memorial Lecture to the Qld Ceramics Society.
I gave the 1st one a decade ago, and it must have been OK, as they have invited me back. Either that, or its taken 10 years to get over the first one 🙂
After the fire, All my dreams were very stressful and all about the shock and terror of the event. I found that I had somehow edited my experiences in my brain to make them more palatable and less stressful, by recalling all of them in black and white and all silent. A bit like old movies.
So The first work that I made after the fire was all in black and white. It took me a while to incorporate some colour into my pieces about the fire.
Over time, and quite a bit of therapy, I healed to the extent that I could start to talk about the fire. but I still had issues that I couldn’t discuss.
I tried to improve my lot by planting an English style Cottage Garden of bright flowers. It helped a bit, I felt good looking at them.
After a few months of a new therapy called EMDR trauma therapy. I felt so much better and started sleeping better, plus several nasty ailments like psoriasis and irritable bowel syndrome started to clear up. This was a very good sign that things were improving.
One day I was painting flames on my pots, and the next I found that the flames had started to turn into flowers!
I didn’t choose this, It just happened! I’m very pleased with the result.
I’ve turned my flames to flowers.
I have no idea where they came from. It just came out of my subconscious. In a very peaceful and quiet way.
Janine and I recently received a surprise job offer to do a geological survey of potential potters materials around Noumea in New Caledonia.
We only had to think about it for 2 seconds, before we said yes!
We are now back home again, hence our radio silence for the past few weeks. We were well looked after and found a lot of useful materials, as far as I am aware, no one has documented anything similar that we could reference. So we were starting from scratch. I approached it as I do here. Consult geological maps for insights as to the best places to look. As these were not forthcoming, we decided to just do a series of drives around the local area and see what turned up in the road cuttings and culverts. These give a great insight into what is under the grass in the countryside.
The research that I did online before leaving indicated that the principal feature of the main island is a nickel-rich laterite material. New Caledonia holds about a quarter of the worlds nickel reserves. Fortunately for them the new era of lithium battery powered electrical devices relies on nickel as one of the primary mineral components.
Our lovely local contact, who we met online, contacted us after we were recommended to her by her friend, who it just so happens bought my book on Geology for potters online from us! After an exchange of emails, we decided to take the job. Everything in New Caledonia is imported with the possible exception of green vegetables, which can be grown locally. Our host has a plan to run a project to teach the local Kanak people to make pots again. Tribal pots were made there in the past, but are no longer made since colonisation. The same is true of the nearby island nation of Vanuatu. I had volunteered on an aid project in Vanuatu in the past, helping the late Alistair Whyte with his private aid project there. Janine and I have also volunteered on privately organised NGO ceramic aid projects in Egypt and The Philippines, as well as New Guinea and Cambodia over the years. So we had some idea of what to expect.
All pottery materials are imported into New Caledonia at great expense, so are not really viable for the local population on lower incomes. We hoped to pass on what we could learn about what it is possible to do with just using the local resources.
We were driven around and given a running commentary on the local issues and landscape usage. I spotted several dykes that had forced their way through the extensive and almost monotonous red/brown local soil profiles. These pale weathered siliceous intrusions hold a much more promising potential for glazes and bodies. We collected several samples that we took back to the studio for testing and analysis.
We also found several clay deposits that showed some promise, but they were so high in iron and very sticky clay minerals like montmorillonite, that they will probably only be useful as earthenware or mid-fire bodies.
I did however find two clay-like minerals that had some promise of firing to stoneware, but these were largely non-plastic or very low in plasticity. A more extensive and detailed search would no doubt find a more promising range of clays, but we only had 10 days to search for and then test what we had found. There is plenty of scope to continue this work and take the first series of tests to a more complex and useful result, but it will take more time. However, after this brief encounter, I’m convinced that there is plenty of potential to develop a locally available body of ceramic materials.
The grid tile tests that we made, looking at potential glaze possibilities were very promising. Again there is more work to be done there to refine and develop these early results, but they were very encouraging.
We found a good black/brown tenmoku, a possible oil spot tenmoku, a very good jun blue and cloudy opal blue, and a couple of celadons. Some of the materials from the hard dykes that weren’t weathered so well were difficult to crush fine enough to get a smooth glaze, but the slightly specky glaze tests show such excellent potential that it would be worth investing in some finer milling equipment? We did the best we could in the very short time available and the equipment that we had on hand. I spent a spare moment throwing two large mortars and pestles for use in the future, as there aren’t any to be had in Noumea.
When we took a longer trip down the south coast to a place called Yaté, we found a lovely little beach with a gité, and had a very nice lunch of locally caught fresh fish, over-looking the beach. After lunch, we found both pumice and cuttle fish above the high-tide mark and collected enough to make a sealadon glaze test.
While we were there in Noumea, Janine taught a night class of surface decoration to some of the local potters at the local gallery and pottery studio.
We had a great time and were really thrilled that we could achieve so many promising results in such a short time. It wasn’t all work, we got a little bit used to island time and managed to fit in a few cultural visits to the museums.
There were some lovely old pots that are no longer made by the local people.
Sea food was plentiful, but swimming in the ocean has recently been banned due to two shark fatalities in quick succession.
It was a great experience, but not everything went to plan.
What should have been a short 2 1/2 hr. flight back to Sydney, turned into an epic 2 day travesty of on-going delays, cancellations and more delays.
We were up a 5am to get to the international airport in Tontouta one hour north of Noumea in time to book in for the early morning return flight, but the aircraft was delayed, so we waited. We eventually got on board, but after half an hour in our seats there was an announcement that the plane would be delayed for technical reasons. After another hour the technical issue was fixed, and we were apparently ready for take-off. We taxied all the way to the end of the runway and turned around. I imagined that we would then thrust full bore down the runway and take off into the wind. But NO. We slowly taxied back to where we had started and parked there. We wait…. We are told that they would need to get a technician in to look at the plane. I suspect that they needed a new rubber band for the propeller, and the only one available would have to bought on the internet on ebay and posted out from China? Expect some longer delay.
We waited some more in our seats and there is an announcement but sitting directly behind us there are two rows of very noisey young French men who talk and jostle each other so vigorously, that we can’t hear what is being told to us, but we can tell that these young guys are not pleased with what has just been conveyed. They ark-up and cause even more of a stir. We are eventually told to disembark and wait in the departure lounge. More abuse from the Gauls, who are galled by the decision. I’m OK with it actually. I’d rather that the plane breaks down on the runway than half way to Australia.
We were apparently told to go back through emigration and customs again, our flight has been officially cancelled. We go back, get our exit stamp cancelled in our pass ports and wait in the departure area. We did that for another 12 hours, while the noisey French guys get drunk at the bar. Earlier on, the lady in charge of the airport comes out of her office and speaks to us, actually them, as she doesn’t repeat it in English. The young French hoons yell and scream at her, one even goes right up to her face and vents his rage right into her face, screaming at her. It’s so appalling. I would expect her to call security and have him detained, but she keeps her cool, although visibly distressed. She returns to her office and there is no more direct communication with us, thanks to the drunken dick-heads.
There are occasional announcements over the PA, that were sometimes contradictory. Always in French, however there was sometimes an English version that followed. But with the brain-dead Frenchmen on the flight who were now thoroughly drunk and always yelling and yar-hoo-ing very loudly every time there was any announcement. So much so, that we could never hear the detail of what was said.
Our sponsor and lovely friend, had seen on facebook that the flight was cancelled and called her friend who she knew was also on our flight. He searched us out, found us, and as a local French speaker, told us what he knew, but it wasn’t very much. We were stuck there in limbo. We just had to wait.
Eventually there came the news that another plane was due in from Brisbane later that night, and we would all be flown to Brisbane. The plane did eventually arrive, an hour late, and after cleaning we were all issued back through customs and emigration again and onboard. It was now 9 pm and we felt like zombies.
We were told that after arrival in Brisbane we should search out the AirCalin representative and she would find us a hotel and another flight onwards to Sydney the next day.
We eventually found her, along with the other 50 to 60 odd passengers who had wanted to go to Sydney. We get allocated a hotel room pretty quickly, but then there is a wait of another couple of hours in the queue of passengers to get our chance to speak to this singular person who is doing the onward bookings on her mobile. We are all sitting, or laying on the floor waiting for our turn. When it comes she tells us that we will have to pay for our own taxi fare into Brisbane to the hotel and back, but there is a mechanism to claim a refund. We get our flight number and taxi away. We finally get into the hotel bed at 2 am.
It’s been a very long and stressful 21 hours of frustration, not improved by our close proximity to drunken dick heads.
We sleep until 7am. Not long enough, but it’s bright daylight out there. We go down to breakfast and return to bed for a little lay down, and suddenly awake to find that we have slept for several hours and we have to rush to get back to the airport for our return flight at 2:30
We needn’t have rushed! The flight before us is cancelled by Qantas, a regular trick performed by them to block other airlines from using the gate. Our Qantas Flight is delayed for an hour. We finally get on board to some relief. But it doesn’t last long. There is a call out for a missing passenger. Will Mr SoandSo please make himself known to the staff. He doesn’t. Eventually the announcement is made that the flight is now delayed further, as the missing Mr. No-show, has a bag in the hold and it has to be found and unloaded.
Finally, another hour later, we take off. Now very late indeed. It will be getting dark soon after we arrive. We need to catch a train to Picton, but it is the weekend now and there is track work, so all the trains are cancelled on our line and we must take several busses to get to Campbelltown and onto the evening train to Moss vale. Then call a friend to come and pick us up at the station, as there are no busses on weekends to our part of the remote world.
Trivial First World problems I know. But they seem to be quite big when you are sleep deprived and stressed. Our beautiful friend Leonard has kept in touch by text and offers to come and collect us from Mascot. Such a lovely gesture, we are past our use-by dates and very grateful of the offer. Even with Leonard’s help, we still only get back home on dark. Len stays over and we thank him by opening a 2009 vintage bottle of superb quality red wine that we had hidden away at the back of the cellar. We share it over a quick pasta dinner. We are able to go to the pantry and get a bottle of our own home grown and bottled tomato passata sauce, an onion, garlic and olive oil, a great friend. We are home safe.
Tonight my Fingers Smell of Garlic 
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