and before I leave I have to go back here –
a very special shop, with the most wonderful smell
in the arcades around the corner
it’s all very belle epoque
with the hot chocolate cart steaming gently on the pavement outside
and the setting is good enough to eat too …
while your purchases are wrapped up like christmas presents
and there is that most old fashioned of shop items
a cashier in the corner.
in Paris again for fashion week. it seems a long time since I did a Paris post
this is the view from the apartment window. we are above and opposite the Tuilerie gardens, very beautiful views of the Paris skyline, the Eiffel Tower, and all the rest, but awful traffic noise with the windows open. and it has been so warm we have had to have the windows open. this morning I can smell the traffic as well, and there is a bit of pollution haze on the horizon.
the collection is very happy in this lovely well lit apartment
and the group we have is all on the artesanal end of things, very small producers
like Christine Birkle of Hut-up
with beautiful dresses, coats, tops … and funny felt animals
I love her happy whales
and we have Aurore Thibout this time,
with beautiful silks dyed by artisans in Taiwan
wonderful tailored casuals and more formal things by Miao Ran from Milan
Colomba Leddi’s crisp and fresh printed cottons which are very special
and Stefano Poletti’s beautiful glass jewellery, made in Paris from special materials. these pieces are from mirror made in Murano, engraved and cut and mounted by Stefano here.
the apartment has some nice bits of furniture, like this art deco shelving unit
and an art deco cabinet – most of the furniture is tidied away for our week’s exhibition though.
the building is pretty special too
marble, wrought iron, the original cage lift
stained glass, parquet floors ……
the alternative is to show in a gallery in the Marais, cool and fashiony, but small spaces with concrete floors, no civilised private areas like we have here, with out lovely bathroom, kitchen …. and the views.
we are still very very sad to have lost the house that Philippe had before, but in lots of ways this is better for the light, and for the position, just opposite the big tent shows in the jardin de Tulieries.
I have made my indigo vat, at last, almost three months after the workshop with Michel Garcia at Hat in the Cat. I didn’t get blue hands this time, I decided I didn’t want to be wearing blue nails in Paris next week, so I sweated disgustingly in rubber gloves.
I was actually rather nervous; I had contacted all the other attendees and asked whether the henna decoction should be strained – the consensus was no – but as I put the henna powder straight into hot water it went into lumps, so I had a rather steamy time mashing it up, and it didn’t get a chance to fall to the bottom, as Michel had said. but anyway, I put it all together – managing to lose a couple of marbles into the vat, and it looked just the same as the vat Michel made in Newburgh. the rest of the day was spent in dipping and rinsing garments,
two cotton bought things, a dress and a hoodie, to lower the ph a bit for the silk, and then five dresses, including a bought slip for my daughter, and a linen cardigan, and then at the end, when it was tepid a cashmere shawl with the moose and tree embroidery. a whole washing line of vivid blues, and the shibori in sodden lumps, waiting to be steamed in the new pressure cooker – which should preserve the creases.
everything was only dipped once, as it was quite strong, and I wanted sky blues, not dark blues, for my next spring collection. I am keeping the vat in the pottery workshop where the blue splashes don’t matter and it will be preserved from frosts, and using the long hose-pipe and various buckets and bins outside for the rinsing. that is not going to be an option in really cold weather.
the vintage kimono pieces I bought on ebay dyed up really well, with their various woven
and dyed and printed patterns taking on new intensity.
given a stronger more coherent feel by the indigo
some of the prints were obviously acrylic and took no dye
and the damask patterns became more three dimensional
the two dresses I made with the japanese silks were a lot of work so I was holding my breath,
but I’m really happy with them
and feel confident about being able to make more
the fuji silk dress pleated into shibori was a success I think, I love this soft blue
and the dupion dress that Molly (my new part time seamstress) made
became rather special with the same treatment.
now after rinsing them and washing and rinsing again they are fit for the collection. It takes quite a lot of rinsing, this indigo thing.
and I have some cardigans to go and find leaves for, and another fuji silk dress shibori-tied waiting for what I hope will be a green dyebath.
and the last of the unglazed pots in my workshop got fired at last .. there are some left, mostly rather old and unloved. they are handy sometimes as kiln-fillers though. this time I thought I would try starting reduction earlier to see if I could get a more even spread of clay body reduction through the pack.
however it was a bit silly to hurry and put the cones in too thick a piece of clay and not get it entirely dried, as the clay blew up in the first hour of firing, and it had to be a by the log book and pyrometer firing, not what I prefer. often that means over or under-firing as the temperature bears very little relationship to the state of glaze melt and heatwork is time as well as temperature related.
and the bits of clay get everywhere, as here on the edge of the bricks under the arch at the front. luckily as the glazes were all very dry nothing stuck except for one little bit which popped off easily. it would have been a different matter had it been a kiln full of chun glazed pots.
a very nice sight when the first few bricks were out
a corker, or a cracker, or whatever ..
the one next to it on the right, was one which had a huge popping out of some foreign body after it had been glazed – the damp made whatever it was swell – probably lime (how that got into the clay I have no idea, I don’t use plaster in my workshop, or at all) I chopped it out, and re-glazed the top to give it a chance, so it has a good side
and a bad side
another picture of the chaos produced by a little damp clay when you put the burners on quite high at the start and jump to four hundred odd centigrade in an hour
in that back corner was the third tall bottle, which also came out well. this one had a history too – I glazed it with the dolomite/copper/tin glaze that’s on the first piece, then changed my mind and washed it off – but not completely, then glazed it again with the “rust accretion” glaze.
nicely reduced at its foot – but that was the only pot which had a foot of toasty reduction, all the others were pale. I think although I started reduction early, it wasn’t a really strong, smoky, stinky reduction.
the clay body is my speckled mix, whereas the one next to it, the first one out, is fireclay, with a lot of grog. anyway, pleased with that one too.
this listening pod has a great inside to its ear
I dribbled the black iron oxide over it and then glazed it with the dolomite glaze. what good things I have got with that oxide over the past year or so!
the same thing here, though the low early sun has given everything a golden glow which is not quite accurate.
better colour later, this is everything.
now I have to start making again, small bottles I think, I have plenty of everything else.
I leave you with my favourite. rather than being one of the boyz, she is an elegant person with a completely individual style of dress, of statuesque build, great dignity and grace.
on sunday I fired my gas kiln at home – it seemed very easy after all that wood-firing.
a misty and bedewed early morning in the garden. after three days I found the temperature in the kiln down to 57C.
I had glazed four big bottles with the Carlos Versluys dry ash glaze, hoping for the same results as last time. I was a little taken aback on opening the kiln, that they looked more stony and dry than I had hoped for.
but one’s preconceptions are usually wrong;
what one hopes for isn’t necessarily the best outcome;
because the real outcome is something that one didn’t know about before.
and in fact this feels like the best firing in a long time.
the stoniness has warmth and allows the form and the very minimal decoration full strength.
there is that feeling of age and character,
four dominant figures, almost intimidating.
then a half-pint. it shows clearly where there is more reduction, especially of the clay body.
on the next firing I am going to try reducing earlier, to see if the hotter parts of the kiln in the middle are missing out on a below 1000C reduction that will reduce these iron-bearing clays.
the wild card was this clematis-impressed bottle, over which I poured and dribbled black iron oxide, and then glazed with pourings of my green/orange/black dolomite glaze. I’m very pleased with it. it was below the half pint, and the flame and reduction have had varying effects on it
which I think are rather good. the speckled clay has worked well too. it reminds me a little of cave paintings.
so now another firing with three more of the big bottles and a few other pieces, and trying a slightly different firing pattern.
meanwhile, the four bad guys are off to London with Ed Clark, to be shown with William Turnbull, Sandra Blow, and other luminaries of British Abstraction, at Rowntree Clark’s stand at 20/21 British Art Fair, in the Royal College of Art. let’s hope they hold up a few customers and mug them.
here is the dropbox link for formal photos
Jane Wheeler
This is my blog filled with things I find interesting and want to share.
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