Siligum?

I guess that I am something of a magpie, collecting ideas from other makers at craft fairs, books and the internet; then adapting them for use in my own work.

Last year I went to the Festival of Crafts at Farnham Maltings and was fascinated by some silver sea shell shaped jewellery. The maker was very willing to tell me that she used a product called Siligum to make moulds of shells with which to cast her silver shells. Further research on the internet led me to put this product on my wishlist for my birthday, and I was delighted to receive this just over a week ago.

I had lots of fun last weekend making moulds of lots of the shells I have been collecting over the years. Some particular 'shells' that I wanted to make moulds from were found on the beach of Oakura near Taranaki on the North Island of New Zealand, they are called Spirula, and are in fact the internal flotation chamber of a small sea squid, Spirula spirula, commonly known as the ram's horn squid.

These shells are extremely fragile, so I was very pleased to be able to use my new Siligum to make moulds which I can now use to re-create these beautiful spirals in clay.
Searching through my craft supplies, I found that I still had some Silver clay which I was able to make workable with the addition of some more water, so I soon had a pair of silver 'spirula' ear-rings...
 

I also have made a matching necklace using a larger shell as a mould, but have not taken a photo of this yet.

Now that I have these shells preserved in moulds it was time to use the original shells in a way which I could enjoy their beauty and stop them from getting damaged, so I have mounted them in a deep frame found in a charity shop.

Difficult to photograph without getting myself in the image!

Stock Piling

Over the past few weeks I have been busy preparing work to exhibit (and hopefully sell) at two events taking place on the May Bank Holiday weekend.

After my successful first exhibition last year with West Forest Potters as part of the Henley Arts Trail; I have been looking forward to this year's event, which takes place on the 4th - 6th May 2013. The event attracts a lot of visitors, so is an ideal opportunity to exhibit some larger, more expensive pieces of work. With this in mind, I plan to include my recently completed rock-form water feature.

Rock form water feature - Ceramic, sea glass and pebbles (h~65cm)

I have also made a new set of Calla Lilies.

Calla Lilies - Ceramic, copper & oak base (h~110cm)

When making my lily heads, I thought it would be fun to try making a vase in this shape, I am pleased with the result (and the vase even holds water!)

Calla Lily Vase (h-18cm, d-9cm)

The other event taking place on the May Bank Holiday weekend is the Thrive-Spring Open Gardens on Saturday 4th May. It will be a busy weekend, but I hope that sales will be good to go towards the recent cost of my kiln and equipment.

New stock for the weekend includes:-

Hei matau (h-23cm, w-16cm)

A hei matau is typically a bone or greenstone carving in the shape of a highly stylised fish hook typical of the New Zealand Maori. They represent strength, good luck and safe travel across water. This is my interpretation made in clay and using the lovely marble green glaze.

Burnished and smoked abstract (h-21cm, w-16cm)

I plan to make mounts for both of these pieces from yew or spalted beech, waiting for warmer weather to work on the wood either outside or in the garage.

Triple bowl (h-9cm, d-14cm)

Continuing to develop and refine (?) my triple bowl idea; this time I used a large light bulb as a mould for the bowls, which worked well and used the marble green glaze inside, so no worries about the glaze running onto the kiln shelf. Unfortunately managed to break the koru on the handle before the piece was fired, a little judicious re-shaping has salved the piece.

I am also making more bowls, birds and garlic pots; as well as making ear-rings and cards using small ceramic hearts and flowers.

If you are free on the Bank holiday weekend, do come and have a look either in Henley or at Thrive.

Water, water, everywhere....

Back in 2010, I had a lot of fun creating some ceramic sculptures based on water eroded rock forms.

When making the second sculpture, I deliberately put suitable holes in the base so that the piece could be used in a water feature. Last year I started trying to design a suitable reservoir in which to sit a small pump and support the 'rock form'. After using a lot of brain cells, purchasing a small pump for an indoor water feature and one false start at building the ceramic reservoir; I finally came up with a potentially workable design.
This was implemented in clay over the Chistmas holidays and emerged from my kiln this morning.

The first test was to see if the base would hold water.
Having established that I had a leak free reservoir, the next challenge was to get everything assembled, the pump rate set and tubing positioned such that I did not get water everywhere!!
After several attempts (and a rather wet kitchen), I was happy with my new indoor water feature.

Rock form water feature - Ceramic, sea glass and pebbles (h~65cm)

I am particularly pleased that most of the water is running down where the sea glass is, looking as if it is eroding the rock.

I was also delighted with this bowl which came out of the kiln this morning.

The inside of the bowl has been glazed with a new marble green glaze, a recent purchase; one which I will be using a lot of in work to come.

Fun with fungi

Whilst exploring further into different fungi, I came across a brilliant website full of images of fantastic fungi; I could spend hours just revelling in the amazing shapes and colours of fungi from around the world!

Already I have experimented with two new shapes of fungi, with a view to teaming these up with some of the lovely wood which I have acquired.

The first of these was the Morchella semilibera

Whilst I am pleased with the overall shape, I need to find a way of making the piece not so heavy and to use more oxide on the edges.

Having spent a long time going back through the images on the 'fantastic fungi' website, I have failed to find the one which inspired the shape below (but had fun looking!)

As well as making fungi from clay, I also have fun trying to photograph any I spot when walking the dog. I think my best photos to date were taken on our wet holiday in the Lakes at the end of October 2012.

No idea of the names of the fungi, sorry!
I think to take photos of the standard of 'fantastic fungi' a better camera is required (possible birthday present in March?), one can live in hope!

Eternity

In 2011 I made a spiral sculpture for the garden, without realising it I had used another maori symbol, this time the symbol for eternity.

The double twist, the pikorua, represents two new fern shoots growing intertwined. 

It takes its meaning in the joining of cultures, lovers or friendships. 

This shape represents a bonding of friendship and loyalty, two lives becoming one for eternity. 

It represents the joining of many people, or cultures for eternity. 

I continue to work with this shape (hard to make in clay) and have recently made a smaller one, this time with just a single twist.


Apparently, the single twist is called the Rauiri and represents the path of life, it is the eternity symbol.  It is often given as a gesture of friendship between different tribes and at a wedding. 

As opposed to the double or triple twist, the single twist represents the joining of individual people for eternity.


This time I covered the leatherhard clay with several coats of green slip, then spent many a happy hour listening to radio 4 whilst I burnished the clay. When fired to stoneware the shine from the burnishing appears (no glaze required). I do need to find a darker green slip, as I feel this is a little too pale.



As a result of  showing images of my work on my blog, I was commissioned to make a pikorua in a blue/grey colour. After many hours of work the following piece emerged from my kiln this week and is now with its new owner.

Pikorua (~30cm height)

This is the tallest work that I can fire in my kiln, I had to shave off a little from the bottom of this piece to make it fit!

Poppy

Quite a while ago, a friend asked if I would be able to make a woven picture of a flower with a bee in one of my ceramic weaving frames. After some thought, decided that whilst I could weave a picture of a flower, it would be fun to add a little ceramic bee to the picture. Here is the finished picture.

I used poppy seeds and poppy seedheads to make the impressions in the ceramic frame, which were highlighted using manganese dioxide.

Echeveria lilacina

In May 2012 I bought myself a new succulent plant from a market stall because I loved the shape, flowers and fact that it had new plants growing from it (several plants for the price of one!). I did not have the name of the plant, but some searching on the internet suggests that it is an Echeveria lilacina. I immediately propagated some new plants which have been growing on very happily for the last few months; time to make some containers that are more interesting than an ordinary flowerpot.

Here are the first two containers.

Plan is to make some more for the other plants which I have propagated, ready for selling in May at Thrive and the Henley Arts Trail.

I have also used the same design for decoration (carved spirals highlighted with copper oxide) on a vase.

Amazingly, I seem to have succeeded in making a vase which does not leak!

The spiral appears again on a piece which was planned to become the base for a lovely piece of yew. Unfortunately the two do not work together so think that I may buy an 'airplant' to sprout from it.

Have I said that I like spirals?