Helen Morken, Mobius I and Mobius V, 2007
Mobius III, Helen’s lovely and clever work, inspired by the drawings of M.C. Escher, is pictured in the Review Gallery pages of the recently released November/December issue of Ceramic Review magazine. Helen is a 3rd year student in the Distance Part Time BA Ceramic Design course at the GSA.
Catherine Bell, Graduate in Residence at the GSA with work in progress.
Thanks to everyone who came to check out our studios at Wasps Glasgow Ceramics Studio during our open studios weekend earlier this month. It was so lovely to have you! If you would like a virtual tour, here’s some photos from my albums.
We’re having a Christmas sale on the weekend of the 8th and 9th of December, so here’s a second chance to visit us! Lots of other artists at Wasps will have their best art wares out for sale that day too. Click here to get the address and phone number for The Glasgow Ceramics Studio at Wasps.
Furthermore, quite a few of the Wasps studio holders and also ceramic artists from the Glasgow School of Art, including Wendy Kershaw and Rachel Fox, will be taking part in the Collins’ Christmas Market, at the Collins Gallery, Glasgow, from 30th November to 3rd December.
The Glasgow School of Art Ceramics Department will also be holding it’s own Christmas Sale, late November or early December. Dates and venue to be announced. Some of the proceeds from this sale are donated to support student educational activities in the Ceramics Workshop.
Three of our lovely and very talented GSA Ceramics Graduates in Residence - Cara Broadley, Lindsay Saunders and Catherine Bell are all exhibiting brand new work in the annual Graduate Exhibition “Fresh” at The White Gallery in Dundee. The show opens on Saturday 3rd November 2007.
Regarding the development of this blog, I’ve done quite a bit of work on my Links page, recently adding a new Research page which provides links to books, magazines and online resources I’m finding useful for my glazing as well as theoretical research. I’ll keep adding resources to this page as I use them. Also check out my glaze results in the week 13 photos.
And, last but not least, we still have a three phase kiln at the Glasgow Ceramics Studio that is FREE to a good home - but you need to pick it up.
A steep climb: stairs up to the Ceramics Department at the GSA.
As the days are getting shorter (less than 12 hours daylight now) and things at school are speeding up, the blog entries are getting further between. Seriously, the Scottish winter closing in is something else. The very long days you enjoy during the summer, suddenly start growing shorter at an alarming rate. It becomes harder to get out of bed as it’s still dark in the morning, and early evenings seem incredibly late - it gets dark at 7pm now. We will sink to an all time low of 3pm by the middle of winter. Sunshine becomes a rare and precious commodity and rain coats an everyday necessity.
Click here to see the results from my first glaze test firing in early October. Clear cone 9/10 oxidation glazes on porcelain. I’d like to extend a special thank you to everyone who contributed the glaze recipes I tested in this batch, including Wendy Kershaw and Janet DeBoos. For the benefit of anyone interested in carrying out their own tests, I’ve included the recipes used with the photos.
The main issues with my test results involve some clear bubbles trapped in the glazes, which my supervisor, Janet DeBoos, tells me are called ‘beading’ and could be remedied by either a thinner application, higher firing temp, longer soak or change of fluxes.
I’ve decided that I really like Glacier Porcelain and dislike P2 Porcelain - just because of its colour. The journey continues…
In the glaze room at the Glasgow School of Art Ceramics Department - wearing my fashion apron! Photo by Cara Broadley
Photos from weeks 11 and 12 are now all uploaded, sorted and documented. Please click here to view them. During those couple of weeks I started with some glaze testing.
It’s been a fascinating process, and something I haven’t done much of before, apart from our Glaze Chemistry classes with Tony Flynn at the CSA and some testing for my raku project a few years ago. So I was very excited to re-acquaint myself with the process and to learn about the effects of ceramic materials in the UK.
L to R: Fraser, Campbell Brown, Eleanor Cale, John, Susan O’Byrne, Bruno Gallagher, Gill, Linda McGill.
This weekend, we (the crowd from the Glasgow Ceramics Studio and our partners), celebrated someone’s birthday in style (but she’s very shy about it so I won’t say whose). So, a very big happy birthday from all of us, Mystery Girl!!
And, for something different, check out the web page of the very talented Bruno Gallagher, a Glasgow based visual and performance artist. And if you fancy philosophy, my husband, Campbell Brown is very talented in that area.
The studio documentation for week 11 is a little delayed - the photos have now been uploaded, but still need captions. Suffice it to say, that it was a very exciting week with the undergraduate full time students starting back at the GSA, including some lovely exchange students from China, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel and Canada (that’s all in the one department!). So, a big welcome to GSA Ceramics to all the visiting students as well as the 2nd years! Apart from meeting all these new people I devoted the week to glaze testing, something that is sure to continue for a few more weeks yet.
Not too much new this week in terms of the studio. I’ve just moved in to my lovely new space at the GSA, which can still do with a bit of decorating, but as you can see, has great potential. I met the lovely Rose Reynolds, who used to have my space, and wish her best of luck with her future. If you’re interested, Wendy Kershaw has photos of Rose’s and other GSA graduating work from last year on her flikr website (Rose’s is the magnetic work on metal shelves).
The decals have been fired onto the cups. See photos from week 10 here. Apart from that I’ve updated quite a few albums. I’ve added a couple of photos to the week 7 album because I made slip again - and there was no point recording the entire process over again, but I had missed out a step.
I’ve also bought and ordered various materials and tools and things to get me started - and had quite an adventure getting about town and “discovering” the pound shops on Sauchiehall Street, as well as ‘The Forge’ retail park and shopping centre. I’ve decided to make a Scotland photo album, just to show general photos of what sort of impressions getting around Edinburgh and Glasgow leaves me with. At the moment, there isn’t much in there, but I’ll build it up over time. I’ve also added a few images to the Glasgow Ceramics Studio album.
Last but not least, I’ve made a links page (well, the start of the many headed monster links pages project). This is what most of my time has gone into this week actually.
The idea is to build a resource that I can use and also share with anyone interested, that has all the sorts of information (that can be got off the web) a student of ceramics might require, in one place.
I’ve posted new photos of the GSA Ceramics Department in the Haldane Building and also a new album called Glasgow School of Art, Design and Architecture with images of some of the other buildings, including the Mackintosh Building. The Exhibitions album has also been updated.
L to R: Mary MacKenzie, Anni Gell, Wendy Kershaw, Mide Quinlan Reddin, Juliet Sargent, Anne Murray, Barbara Attard Pettett, David King, Helen Morken, Angela, Homa Vafaie-Farley, Miranda Forrest, Ester Svensson.
This week I joined the 3rd year part-time Distance BA Design (Ceramics) students in a decal making workshop with Bill Brown. We learned how to screen print our own decals and how to make monoprinted transfers. Click here to see the photos. (This album is password protected).
I also sat in on two research methodologies lectures presented by H&C, one on “Object as text and writing on film” by Frances Robertson and one on “Art as/and philosophy” by Dr Ken Neil. (We discussed Heidegger and our feeling of angst). I’m very grateful to all of them for letting me sit in on the lectures.
The other exciting thing that happened is that I saw Tony Franks, who is the former head of the Edinburgh College of Art and of the Ceramics Department there. He suggested that I look up Francis Priest, an Edinburgh based ceramic artist and former graduate of his. Indeed, I’ve admired her work previously at The Scottish Gallery.
This week has been a very intensive week for me, so I only really managed one day in the studio. I’ve added new images mainly documenting my bisque firing, click here to see those.
Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I spent all day at the Glasgow School of Art. This was the second week of the summer Residential School for some of the part-time Distance BA (Hons) students.
Shortly I’ll be starting as an exchange student at the Glasgow School of Art Ceramics Department. Bill Brown is currently head of Ceramics there. I’m extremely excited about it and feel really privileged at the opportunity. I’m starting to build an album of photos taken there. Click here to see the photos so far.