Jane Wheeler's Blog 2007 December

dune beach

Posted jane -->on 30th Dec 2007

luminous moss in the dunes. a very grey day seems to intensify greens and yellows. we walked the dogs through the marshes to the dunes and onto the beach, all shades of grey .. wet sand reflecting grey, grey sea, grey sky, paler grey mist hanging over the breaking waves so sea and sky were indistinguishable.

no wind but the sea was rough from the previous day’s stormy weather. here though there was an inlet, a low, where the dogs could paddle in shallow water. Tilda drank quite a bit, which had repercussions later.

they had a great time, just like kids do on the beach

water and sand make a wonderful playground; new sensations and endless space for chasing.

we climbed to the top of the highest dune, which got my heart beating double time for a few minutes. in this flat landscape it’s a vantage point from which one can see a few miles in every direction, but it was drizzling so visibility was limited.

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midwinter tree

Posted jane -->on 23rd Dec 2007

it’s two days the other side of the midwinter solstice, and still frosty at night. I got up at four am and the full moon was blazing down on the frosty garden. along the edge of the woods at midday the frost was white and hard as ever, though it was a sunny day today.

we put up a small flock of Brent geese on the wheat. they weren’t going to go until Sal and Tilda decided to have a game and Sal barked. walking across the field the view seemed enormous in the soft light.

seven geese refused to be moved, even when the main flock had flown off to other fields, and waddled off in a little group. one payback is that they leave some rich manure behind.

you can see the next village’s church in the background here. although we had such a beautiful clear day, four miles further inland there was thick freezing fog.

we went into the wood so that I could photograph this solitary beech tree. it has a small clearing around it carpeted with copper leaves, and when it is wet the trunk looks black.

coming out again, I found Tilda had disappeared. she had gone further into the woods, and she had a plan. in fact she ran off five times today, I don’t know what got into her, but she was very determined to carry on as though I didn’t exist.

(4 comments)

wildlife down on the farm

Posted jane -->on 16th Dec 2007

the last two days the wildlife have been very evident down on the farm. there has been a large flock of Brent geese – another winter visitor, encamped on the winter wheat. yesterday I waved my arms and walked up the field near them, and they only waddled further away from me, nattering to each other in their gutteral purring voices. today I did move them on a bit, but they just landed again 100 yards further up the field.

they seem very tame compared to the pink footed geese which shut up if there is a human near, and take off at the slightest movement.

here they are, refusing to do more than fly out of range, and then settle down again. one was even sitting down. I hope it’s not that the cold weather is making them weaker.

as we walked down the track back to the wood, two big hares got up and ran off, luckily Tilda didn’t really see them, and she was on the lead anyway. its nice to see them about, though no doubt 50 years ago on a sunny winter afternoon there would have been tens of them rather than two. yesterday a pair of roe deer stood in the wood, in their woolly winter coats, staring out at me; they obviously hadn’t realised that I could see them in there.

We were walking up-wind of any creatures, so Tilda had a disappointing time – in this photo she was looking at the hedge at the bottom of Cake’s Lane because there was a blackbird in it.

when we got home I was assembling a sheaf of garden leafery and berries to go on the door for Christmas when there was a terrific noise of Brent geese protesting at being turfed off their nice comfy wheat field, and they flew over. I wonder how far they will go. there are plenty of fields of wheat round here.

(2 comments)

frost crystals

Posted jane -->on 13th Dec 2007

yesterday’s frost hung about in the shade all day. along the woods the leaves on the ground were all frosted with quite big crystals and they sparkled in the bright light, making miniature rainbows.

this one was particularly be-jewelled.

today the frost had already melted by nine in the morning and we have patchy cloud cover, so there won’t be any sparkly leaves in the woods.

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winter sun

Posted jane -->on 11th Dec 2007

That last firing was great, but I wonder how much reduction I was getting. One tends to see the main symptom of reduction as the big flame out of the chimney/flue. But I noticed that before I started reducing, as it was still a bit dark, I could see little bits of flame coming out. I think my burners are so powerful that the flame is as long as that! (the flame starts UP beside the flue, at the bottom of the kiln, goes up and round the arched ceiling, down again, under the floor, and then up the flue) so if I want real reduction I have to make sure I have lots of back pressure � ie little flames out of any gaps in the clamming, or if the spyhole is opened, a visible flame out of it.

so here is the biggest pot, another attempt at the one which broke. it is of course not as tall, so it looks a bit stumpy.

because the weather is cold and damp I can’t really get the clay to dry out as much so this guy was made with rather more plastic clay than I usually handle, and it has no cracks at all. in fact it was still quite soft when I was beating it with the paddle, so it didn’t even crack at the top, which they usually do. it used about twice the amount of clay something like the tall pot with the ochre band round the waist used.

a beautiful bright day today, but we are tipped over so far away from the sun, now we are nearly at the shortest day, that even at midday the sunshine hardly mitigates the cold air. the woods are very light with all the leaves gone, so you can see into them, and they were back-lit by the low slanting sun. this patch is full of soft brushes of mares-tail, a grey-green texture under the hazel trees.

a huge sky of intense blueness with faraway cities of cloud. the sun makes the rows of little winter wheat stalks incandescent green, a bit like the green copper flames of my firing.

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mixed bag

Posted jane -->on 9th Dec 2007

I was trying to be laid back about opening the kiln this morning, but suddenly I found myself up there with the trowel, scrabbling away at the clay and sand that seals the bricks on the front opening. I had made an extra good job of it this time and it wasn’t easy to get the first brick out.

quite an interesting result. firstly, the barium glaze on the ST material at that temperature is gorgeous, smooth dry matt white and ochre on the overlap. this is the biggest pot, it was right next to the flame, and I think it is spectacular.

this is the other side from the photo on the website.

then the other really big pot I glazed with the copper/tin/dolomite glaze on top and the wood ash/china clay glaze on the bottom. you can see how uneven the temperature is in that kiln, because the wood ash glaze hasn’t matured properly on one side, the side that was into the corner of the kiln. but I like this effect, its rather beautiful. the other glaze on the top is slightly less matt than usual.

then the porcelain layered pots did some not unexpected things. on one of them most of the porcelain peeled right off.

here are the pieces of porcelain which fell off in the kiln. the other two pots still have the porcelain attached, but they look quite extreme.

I shall glaze this one and the other two and refire them. the other piece like this, which had already been fired to cone 10 with the barium glaze, came out well.

all the little pots which were on the kiln floor at the back, and therefore theoretically in a cool spot, came out well, with good reduction, ie the clays are good and dark, and the shino has nice orange flashing.

the shino acted a little differently on these two and the crawl patterns are a bit more special.

you can see the rest here http://www.soozwhippet.com/1300CfiringDec2007/index.htm

(4 comments)

another firing

Posted jane -->on 7th Dec 2007

I just finished another firing. this was the one for porcelain temperature, cone 11 (1300 C). cone 11 went over with the pyro reading much lower, as usual, 1256C. and a nice early finish, 7 pm, early enough to go and socialise with my friends next door, although I may come home early, since I was up at 3am, and 5 am, and 7 am, lighting burners and turning up pressure. it was a very mild night and I missed the torrential downpour at 6am.

here is the flame at cone 11, it seems to have a much bigger whiter core than the lower temp flames.

from the side, and then from the front; you can just see the green from free copper in the atmosphere

but actually there was a lot more green than that. this firing has all the pieces I made with layers of different clays, including a re-firing of one of them, to a temperature where the porcelain should start to fuse, and the other clays to darken, and there should be some warping and a lot of shrinkage. the ones with porcelain are not glazed except a thin layer of barium glaze on the re-fire, and the two big pots with ST material are glazed, one with barium, and the other with the combination I call salt marsh, with the copper/tin/dolomite glaze on the upper half, and the wood ash glaze on the lower. and at the back underneath, are 10 small pots, half with shino and half with barium.

I will be very interested to see how this firing turns out as it is a risky experiment.

this morning we got the chance of a quick walk in the sun. I have been waiting to take this photo for a while.

the little red square against all that green – its completely abstract. I should probably crop it more. everything was very wet after the rain overnight, pools of muddy water against the edge of the wood, which is a very boggy place itself.

just a few leaves hanging on in the wood.

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unpack

Posted jane -->on 3rd Dec 2007

I opened the kiln and unpacked it this morning; yesterday was a miserable day and today there was sunshine, good for photographing pots. it was a pack a little too tight – some of the pieces didn’t get quite as much heat as others, and one will be fired again, but that is the one with all the porcelain loosely layered – I think all those pieces need to be taken up to a temperature where the porcelain will start to fuse, and then I won’t need to glaze them. that’s on the advice of my friend Antje Ernestus, whose work is all porcelain these days. so I will have to get the kiln up another 30 or so degrees Celcius.

the porcelain worked well on 2 smaller pots, which I made with the leftover clay from the big pot which broke. it was a layer of David Leach porcelain rolled out in a thick layer on top of a crank. the porcelain cracked but not enough to destroy the pot, and then the shino worked really well over that, with a crawl pattern much larger than over the other clays.

this pot worked well but the glaze would have been more rust and green if it hadn’t been stuck rather close to several others of similar shape. I was disappointed when I first saw it, but now I like the graphic contrast of the blackened pouring against the white porcelain inlay.

this one is a version of the scratched chalk beach I photographed a month ago. I am pleased that I got some almost greens on the porcelain here. this is a much thinner layer of it, and it seems to have no trouble expanding and contracting with the different clay under it.

and this one I am pleased with as I hadn’t tried the more opaque glazes over porcelain. this just has porcelain buttered and scored over a body that is basically St Thomas reduction; a very dark iron bearing stoneware clay which has gone out of production now. my matt copper/tin/dolomite glaze and the wood ash glaze are working really well on it.

and the pictures of the rest are here

(2 comments)

winter

Posted jane -->on 1st Dec 2007

the first day of winter.

after spending a lot of today socialising I picked up the dogs and headed for a different beach; one where I could be sure the car park wouldn’t be locked at dusk. a surprisingly large number of people were still out walking and flying kites, despite it being past lighting up time, and despite the strong cold wind.

the tide was at its lowest, the geese on the marsh in their tens of thousands were crying almost like seagulls as they came back to roost, and that was all I could hear; the sound of waves was completely drowned out.

and as we came back to the car even more geese were piling in; at a certain height they all spilt the air from under their wings with a right – left waggle and sank into the darkness of the dusky marshes.

(3 comments)

dune beach

midwinter tree

wildlife down on the farm

frost crystals

winter sun

mixed bag

another firing

unpack

winter

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