an exhibition coming up

in just under 2 weeks I have an exhibition of pots in the Bircham Gallery in Holt, together with photos by the gallery owner, Chris Harrison. a great opportunity to put the wood-fired pieces out into the world. however we selected some slightly older pieces, and some “back catalogue” ones as well,

like this huge flask vessel from 2007. after my first experience of woodfiring with Nic Collins, and particularly of placing pots on their backs or sides on wads, that’s how I fired this one, in my gas kiln. it was too tall for the kiln standing up. I also placed some little containers of salt near it, something which I had seen Nic do.

this was fired in a makeshift saggar also in my gas kiln, with hardwood shavings. I tried it three times and the best results came from this firing. there are two other pieces, both of which reflect the changes in my work due to firing with Nic, and with Gas Kimishima, when I spent two weeks camping and firing for ten days in a wood near Tring.

now I have got such good results on Nic’s woodfiring workshop, I will continue to take part – it is a unique opportunity for me to wood fire in a group situation, with all Nic’s expertise available, something I could never do at home.

whether covered in the ambient ash and cinder melt

or red clay glazed with shino

or further back in the kiln with only flame marks and wonderful toasty clay colours

my pots really love this sort of firing.

in contrast, there will be a big group of gas-fired pieces in this chun glaze with the crawling slip and iron oxide under it.

the jewel-like chun glaze rolling off and dribbling over the naked clay has the same kind of feel as the wood fired pieces, but the light colouring, refracting and reflecting light, makes them at the same time quite different.

clay, pots, trees, ash, leaves, light, refracted blue …..

I hope to see a few people who like my pots, at the Bircham Gallery on Saturday 17th January!