getting round to stuff

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so much to do, in so many different directions, but I am getting through it. one of them was to photograph the new pots properly, and to do that I had to finish tidying the bases where some still had debris stuck and also take off the chunk of pot from the back of one of them, using my dremel drill. this is the makeshift studio – basically two soft boxes on neon lamps, and a black-to-grey vinyll backdrop pegged to a ply board propped against my stool on my worktable. there’s a lot of ambient light too, as this is right underneath a very generous skylight and next to double doors which are fully glazed.

6 woodfired large bottle from firebox shoulder detail

I use a small camera, a lumix DCM camera which is a point and shoot, and gives me a much better quality photo than my old SLR which I got rid of. I don’t use a tripod, because I don’t have the patience to keep resetting up – I need the flexibility of just waving myself around in front of the pot to find the best point of view.

3 woodfired large bottle 53 x 24 cm

so I got some nice dramatic full views

2 wood fired scored large flagon 52 x 40 cm

like these

1 woodfired large flagon 54 x 37 cm

but some interesting (I hope) close-ups

6 woodfired large bottle from firebox foot detail

which I want to counterpose

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with all the other things that are whirling around in my head at the moment

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as I feel it is all interconnected

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in ways which are very important to me

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perhaps in ways which I can’t put into words that well

4 woodfired large bottle with ash deposit foot closer detail

and that fit together visually better

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trees, leaves, earth, clay, wood-fired pots,

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leaf prints;

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all these shapes and textures

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and colours

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the sky, the air, the light, the whole

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experience of being in this place

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and looking, sometimes in ways as focused as my lurcher scanning the landscape for prey.

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the ash from hard woods that Nic threw into the kiln and that streamed like molten lava down the shoulders of my pieces, and the shells that were pressed between pots, and the plough lines that I combed into this bottle’s shoulder, combining to make new things

3 woodfired bottle detail shell mark

leaves

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soft fractal shapes

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and landscape lines that bend according to where you are

5 woodfired shino glazed large bottle detail

 

 

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