In Situ

Well it's about that time of year again for my yearly blogpost, although one of my New Year resolutions (AGAIN!) is to try to keep this blog more up-to-date.  Maybe this year I will actually succeed ;)

Anyway it has been a busy year in the Tinderbox!  Firstly, I was very excited to be able to join a new artist's collective based in Cork called Over The Line Studios.  It is really the first studio in Cork which actually provides for ceramicists, and we have access to a range of kilns and individual spaces large enough to cope with the general chaos which seems to be generated by anyone who works with clay.

As well as ceramics we also have a mix of artists working with various media such as painting, photography, textiles and sculpture, which is great for learning new skills and bouncing ideas.

The studios are situated over a kitchen showroom where beautiful high-spec kitchens are on display.  For our opening group show it was decided we would be showing our pieces inside the kitchens, which took a while for some of us to get our heads around.  What...no white walls?  No PLINTHS???  How is our stuff going to work in a room full of shiny marble and MIRRORS?? However, once we had freed ourselves from our mental straight jackets we could see how exciting and different the possibilities were.

It was entitled In Situ, as the work was, obviously, being shown in situ, and bar the odd crash and heart-breaking smash it was a roaring success, and firmly put OverTheLineStudios on the Cork art scene.  There was lots of wine, there was music, there was dancing and it was great to discover how well we could all pull together as a team when it mattered.

Anyhoo, here are some pics of the work on display.  If any of you are ever in Cork and fancy popping in to the studios to say hi, please do! ;)

Driftwood Disc:  Saggar-Fired Stoneware, Found Chain, Driftwood

Beach Stones:  Saggar-Fired Stoneware.  Photography by Dervla Baker.

Beach Stones:  Saggar-Fired Stoneware.  Photography by Dervla Baker.

Escapades of Chickens:  Saggar-Fired Stoneware, Found Toolbox, Found tools.
We found this old toolbox our rambling one day and it took a couple of years of subconscious festering before I finally decided what to do with it. Basically a chicken escaped and laid it's eggs in a tool box.  I got the idea from a painting hanging in the Crawford Art Gallery of a basketful of eggs.  Not sure who painted it, nor am I sure how my mind managed to make a connection to the toolbox but hey ho that is what happened and here are the results ;)

By The Sea:  Black and White Stoneware, Found Chain, Driftwood.
The black ceramic beach stones with white stripes in this piece were inspired by the beautiful stones on one of my favourite beaches here in Cork.  Obsidian?  Quartz?  Geology is not my strong point but I would like to find our more ;)

Dragon Eggs and Mordor:  Saggar and Sawdust-Fired Stoneware

Black Dog: Saggar-Fired Stoneware

Beyond The Ha-Ha

Cor well I can't believe I haven't been near this blog for almost a year.  So much has happened!  Since I finished college I have been pretty busy trying to learn how to be a proper artist ha.  I was awarded a three month graduate residency in the National Sculpture Factory here in Cork, which was really exciting.  I have just finished my stint there and am currently showing work in a group show called Beyond the Ha-Ha, so I thought I would share a little bit of my new work with you.

We had a wild winter, so the beaches were awash with all sorts of rubbish.  This was good news for a bin-raking beachcomber like me, so I filled my poor groaning car with sackfuls of crap and loads of interesting driftwood and hauled it all home to Tinderbox HQ, i.e our shed ;)

My good friend Amy and I spent about a week making loads of plaster moulds of beach stones so that I could make a whole heap of ceramic stones.  Some of them I saggar-fired, and some were made of terracotta and sawdust-fired, and I also discovered black porcelain for the first time which is gorgeous stuff to work with. I had fun trying to balance the stones of top of one another in  different formations;

One of my favourite finds was a stove top which was all rusted.  I fell in love with the shape of it and would have been quite happy to just show it on its own as I think it is beautiful, however it was further enhanced by the addition of some of the black and red stones:

One glorious evening I decided to take some of the new stuff down to the beach and do a photoshoot.  The light was wonderful and luckily I managed to get loads of pictures just before the tide came in oof that would have been a disaster ha ;)

I also wanted to get some driftwood in there, so I made a saggar-fired hanging piece with a particularly lovely flat piece:

Anyway the show is running until the 4th of May in the Wandesford Quay Gallery, so if any of you are around Cork please do pop in. There are also more ceramics on display, as well as paintings and sculpture.  In the meantime I shall be keeping busy with my first solo show in October (eek!) and trying to keep a lid on the panic ;) Your comments are, as always, most welcome ;)

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!  ;)