Glasgow Ceramics Studio Residency

Well one of my New Year resolutions is to keep this blog more up to date, and as it has only taken me a year to write this post I feel I am not doing too badly so far ;)  In 2013 I was offered a graduate residency in the Glasgow Ceramics Studio for six months by the wonderful Susan O'Byrne, so after I had got the solo show out of the way and had been kindly funded by the Arts Council I stuffed my life into the back of my birdshit green car and hotfooted it back to my native Scotland.

Glasgow looking cold ;)

Glasgow in January is cooooollllld.  So cold in fact that the first person I met when I arrived at the WASPS studios was a snowman, leaning drunkenly over and wearing a rather fetching beanie hat.  However I was warmly greeted by Emilke, one of the studio members, and shown around. Located just to the East of the centre in Dennistoun, the WASPS building is an old tobacco factory which has been converted into studios for more than 140 artists. Home was a cosy flat above the studios which I shared with two painters (both whisky drinkers, which was good ;)). The ceramics studio is home to 18 ceramicists and has a wealth of facilities including six different kilns and a range of wheels.  Everyone was lovely and very supportive and I was given my own space and free rein to do what I wanted, which after all the pressures of the previous year was exactly what I needed.

Happy chaos in the studio

The first couple of weeks I spent just reacquainting myself with the city.  I used to live in Glasgow but it had been several years since I had been back for any length of time, and I was more familiar with the West side than the East.  I visited several museums and galleries, ate a lot of macaroni cheese ( a Glasgow staple...you will find it on every menu in every restaurant) and did a lot of street pounding, muffled up against the wind.  Down past the soot-blackened buildings of the Saltmarket, the Barrowlands, the Gallowgate, the old Fruitmarket, Rottenrow, Merchant City...wonderful names that beat like drums in your brain... the views from the Necropolis, following the River Clyde through Glasgow Green and over the bridge into the Gorbals.

Piece from an Alasdair Gray exhibition at GOMA

I was also given the opportunity to visit the Glasgow School of Art post-fire as my friend Christabel Geary (wonderful stuff - check her out ;)) had an exhibition on while I was there as part of her Masters degree.  My father studied there, a well as a good few of my friends, and it had been extremely saddening to hear of the fire and the loss of the library in particular.  It still smelled a bit smoky, but it was great to see art still being produced and the determination of the students to carry on.  There was a great sense of everyone pulling together which was encouraging.

I also started revisiting artists who I love, one of whom is Joan Eardley, a firm family favourite.  She studied at the Glasgow School of Art and in the 1950's produced colourful collaged paintings of  Glasgow street children, highlighting inner city poverty at that time.  She had a wonderfully free expressive style which charged the canvas with life, and later she moved to Catterline which is a small fishing village near to where I grew up, and painted the force of the storms on the landscape there.

Joan Eardley 'Little Girl with a Squint''

Joan Eardley 'Little Glasgow Girl'

Joan Eardley 'Sea and Snow'

I wanted to take some of this energy and apply it to ceramics.  Usually I love smoke-firing and shy away from glazing, as I find Nature usually does a far better job of decorating than I do, and glazing is so often a disappointment (in my case, anyway ;)).  However, I thought I would take advantage of the fact that for once I wasn't under any pressure to produce anything to a deadline and that I was free to play and experiment, and I had great facilities at my disposal, so I began to muck about with different printing processes and glazes and just had fun.  Most of the work I produced while in Glasgow was flat so that I could transport it easily, and some of it ended up being jewellery (which can be seen on the facebook page...etsy shop to follow!).  Mainly, however, the work was about trying to shake myself out of the shackles of college and what I thought I was expected to produce.  For me, art is about pushing the boundaries and exploring as much as possible.  I don't want to have to keep producing the same kind of stuff all the time.  That might gain me a measure of success but to my mind it doesn't make me an artist, and I don't measure my worth in the number of pots I sell.  You can spend a lifetime learning about clay.  There are any number of techniques and processes which invite experimentation, and therein lies the excitement and joy of it for me.

Having said all of that, you will no doubt find me covered again with sawdust and copper carbonate before too long ;) Happy mudding ;)

Fabric-printed pieces waiting to be fired

Fabric-printed tile

Fabric-printed tile

Fabric-printed tile

Glazed tile with Lucie Rie Gold

Stencil-print tile

Stencil-print tile

Stencil-print tile

Fabric-printed porcelain and sterling silver ring (source)

Fabric-printed porcelain and sterling silver ring (source)

Facebook Page

Well I have finally got round to making a Facebook page hallelujah! Not quite sure how I'm supposed to link it to this blog...there are probably far more professional ways of doing this! But if you fancy liking it then it would be much appreciated ;)

Tinderbox Ceramics Facebook Page

Plastic Soup

Hmm so I have been woefully neglecting this blog lately as have been bogged down with thesis, work and college stuff and sometimes it doesn't seem to matter how fast you go you never seem to be able to catch up.  However, I thought I could share some of the stuff I've been working on lately with you.  I have been indulging in a spot of beachcombing, again, recently and I have been horrified by the amount of plastic to be found.  The beaches in East Cork are covered in the stuff.  The plastic lies like bright pops of colour amongst the seaweed, bottles, old ropes and fishing nets that also litter our beaches.  They are sea-worn and very smooth, and strangely beautiful even though the presence of it in such large amounts is extremely disturbing.

Whilst googling the possible causes of all this plastic, I came across this guy Jurga Rakau, who has recently spent six months photographing plastic on Irish beaches that apparantly originates from all the immense masses of crap floating around our oceans. (Source)

I have started making pieces which I hope will bring some attention to how shocking the existence of all this plastic is.  They are not finished yet, but I think I am going to suspend some of them in a Calderesque manner, and some I will make into wall pieces.  In the meantime, every time I go to the beach now I take a big sack which I stuff with as much plastic and faded old bleach bottles as I can, and I take them home and recycle them.  It's not much, but it feels like a start ;)

Ship's horns

Da de dum so continuing with my obsession of all things mariner, I wanted to try and make some ship's horns out of clay.  This proved to be quite difficult, however, so they became a kind of hotch potch of clay, metal and plaster, with some spray paint thrown in for good measure ;) Originally I wanted them to speak,  maybe bellowing out sea shanties in a drunk-on-rum kind of way, but I didn't want any technology to be visible so I ended up abandoning the idea.  I took some abstract pictures of the Cork Docklands, however, and painstakingly collaged them with lasertran (not an ideal task for a person, such as myself, not too well-versed in the art of patience ;0)

This was the result, with one guy saying they reminded him of his mother-in-law and another saying they were straight out of telly tubby land ;)

However, they ended up in our third year show and on the opening night I found these guys with their ears pressed up against them, and when I asked them what they were doing they said they could hear the sea in them, which was kind of cool ;)

Anyway, since then one of them has unfortunately succumbed to a mysterious attack from an unknown source, however I suspect the culprit was my mad animal, Sputnik.  Here is he pretending to look innocent, but we all know he's not ;)

So I guess it's good to know that ceramics isn't just about plates and cups and ashtrays...clay can be whatever you want it to be, which is the fun part ;)  Thank you for reading this, until next time!  ;)

Buoys

I live near the Cork Docklands and I love watching the huge ships   go past my bedroom window on their way in and out of the port.  I have taken probably thousands of photographs of the Docklands, partly because the area is prime real estate and all the old warehouses and grain stores are in danger of being demolished to make way for riverside apartments and swanky hotels, but also because there is just so much cool stuff there. There is a wealth   of inspiration for textures, colours and shapes to be found.  For a start, there is all this mad machinery.  I am always more interested in a machine if I can't immediately guess what it's for...

There is also an abundance of rotting paint, rust and graffiti which I am also always drawn to...

However, what I really love about the Docklands is the atmosphere, especially as the light changes in the evenings, and this is what I tried to convey in my ceramics.

I was also inspired by Betty Blandino's gorgeous textured vessels, and the dreamy quality of Adam Buick's moon jars.

(source)

(source)

I started making buoys of various sizes and using different coloured clays in an attempt to capture the haunting feeling and the changing moods of the Docklands.  Some of these were glazed, some saggar-fired in a raku kiln, some smoke-fired in a beer barrel which had had the top cut off ;):

Some of them definitely proved more successful than others, however ceramics are always a case of trial and error, I think ;)Anyhoo, if you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me.  Thank you!  ;)