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in the green road

Posted jane -->on 28th May 2015

so much green. May may be my favourite month of the year in England.

the green road

and green leaf prints seem to be the thing. I discovered that sycamore leaves give great green prints, both sides of the leaf too,

sycamore on silky merinodress

after dipping in iron water, sometimes darkening to purplish, mostly those were the leaves with a red-purple tinge, which some trees have when the leaves are young

pearlydress

I now have two great long kimono silk linings printed like this

sycamoreon silk

and this

sycamoreon kimono lining

not sure what to do with them.

jackbythehedgesample

experimenting further, with things in my garden, I found wonderful green leaf prints with jack by the hedge

jackbythehedge

beloved of orange tip butterflies, and those who like tasty wild plants; it also goes by the name of garlic mustard.

mydressfull

so I decided on a dress just for me with this ephemeral wild plant, combined with cow parsley.

my dress

it will be interesting to see how fast it is. I have been wearing a similar one dyed with my banksii rose leaves for eight months, and it has held up well. I think using metal acetates, copper and iron, seems to help with fastness. I washed the jack by the hedge dress and if anything it seemed greener afterwards.

banksii blanket

as for the banksii rose, it is enormous at the moment, and covered in flowers. once they are over it is going to have to have a radical trim, as I can only get in the shed where I keep the pots by bending double, and it is right over the top of several parts of my shed complex.

under the rose

even the workshop is blanketed under it.

rosejug

indoors the flowers have an intense perfume. the double yellow is another banksii, but without the scent.

felbrigg beech

we visited Felbrigg woods, the beech trees there are quite extraordinary.

green beech leaves

more intensity of green

trunk

huge old chestnuts as well

the late oak

at the bottom of the green lane one oak is very late, but it always keeps its leaves until almost Christmas.

reluctant ash

the ash trees are really late this year, only just fully out, right at the end of May; the cold weather has held them back.

curly

Tilda after an expedition into the rape. all sorts of deer, the hares, and the rabbits spend their time under cover in it, she always comes out soaking wet with yellow petals in her coat.

ashbranch rape

here it is at the beginning of the month. now it has almost finished flowering and is shoulder high.

 

 

Pragmata Gallery

Posted jane -->on 23rd May 2015

here are some photos from the first exhibition in Japan, which Pragmata Gallery kindly sent me;

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first of all, the pots arrived in one piece, except for one black clay incense burner which lost its little blip ear thing – that clay is very fragile even after a stoneware firing.

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here is Petros in his gardening outfit – the theme was an English Garden – he has seen so many photos of my garden and the countryside around here ….

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“grass” on the floor

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although Petros is Greek, he has certainly absorbed the principles of japanese organisation and small space interiors

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Petros and I were very pleased with the result.  I am very grateful to him for putting on this exhibition, and honoured to have the work there.

soon there will be another exhibition in Tokyo, at the Oz Zingaro gallery

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with a very posh invite. it opens on 28th May, here are the details

Oz Zingaro, Takashi Murakami’s ceramics gallery in Tokyo

Yubinbango164-0001, Nakano-ku, Tokyo Nakano 5-52-15
Nakano Broadway 4F 03-5318-4150
opening times 12:00 to 19:00

two firings, very different

Posted jane -->on 3rd May 2015

I’ve been making work for a second show in Japan this last two weeks, having shipped off thirty three pieces for the first one, at Pragmata Gallery, last week. it’s horribly last minute especially as the last firing was a bit of a shocker.

ohdear

I used to have more of this when I first started using the black iron oxide crackle slip combination, and I suspected that I was pushing it. but I was trying for deeper blues and that requires thicker coats of the chun glaze. as you can see I overdid it.

shocker

glaze flowed more than I was expecting

a badcaseoftheruns

a shame because the blues were indeed beautiful

blueblue

but some pieces were exceptional and are on their way to Pragmata gallery. the exhibition there opens on the 8th May.

kilnopened

in the way of things I was perhaps overcautious on the next firing. I was pretty sure that the crackle slip would have calmed down and not open up like this

peeledblue

it is only really a crackle slip when freshly mixed.

watercolourbottle

and I was right. also I didn’t want it to cover up the imprints of leaves and stems pressed into the fresh clay when I made the pots, nor the runs and layers of the iron oxide.

watercolourgroup

so the thinner layer of slip gave me these lovely watercolour effects.

shockingbowl

this very spectacular bowl came from the first firing.

bowl

this from the second. I was rather surprised. was the difference due just to the depth of the chun glaze, as the oxide under it was the same as before? or did the early reduction that I had been chasing, to get the clay feet of the pots toasty, somehow change the action of the oxide with the glaze? we will see what happens in future firings.

anothergoodie

at the back of the kiln the blues were much stronger. I have no idea why.

pearlies

these were at the front. I have to say that what I have been doing works one hundred percent better on a grogged dark clay. this is a relatively smooth white stoneware.

pinkgrogged

but here is a red grogged stoneware, the pot is very lovely but it could have been much bluer at the back of the kiln.

one of the best

I have four large bottles from this firing which I’m very pleased with, and eight small pieces, bottles and caddies.

the group for japan

plus around eighteen from previous firings. all to be shipped off on wednesday to Oz Zingaro Gallery in Tokyo.

then I’m going to get experimenting.

lucyspicnic

meanwhile, this beautiful photograph taken in the highlands of Scotland by my daughter encapsulates a lot of the things that happen in the glaze slip oxide clay relationship in these pots