I have just received news that the Head of the School of Design, Professor Irene McAra McWilliam, announced to the student body today that the school is to stop accepting enrollments from new students in ceramics, with a view to closing the department down.

The official reason for the closure is that the department has not received enough interest from prospective students for keeping it running to remain a viable option. This, however, seems incorrect, as always in the past there have been more new applicants than places available.

With the recent amalgamation of the Ceramics Department at the Edinburgh College of Art with the Sculpture Department, it appears that all options for skills based degrees for ceramic artists in Scotland are being closed.

I have recently moved to Scotland and have been involved with the Glasgow School of Art Ceramics Department while studying for my MPhil degree in Ceramics through the Australian National University. Indeed, the ANU has had a long standing exchange and working relationship with the Glasgow School of Art, as have many other institutions throughout the world.

I have found the knowledge, skills and generosity of Archie McCall, Bill Brown, Irene Bell and Wendy Kershaw to be outstanding. Their hard work, expertise, mentorship and love of teaching is all that stands against the loss of talent, continuity of the Scottish ceramic tradition and skill for the next generation of Scottish contemporary ceramic artists and designers.

The Glasgow School of Art offers a design perspective to the study of ceramics, including unique state of the art screen printing and plaster working facilities. It is widely connected with ceramics industry and specializes in Architectural Ceramics.

It is indeed a shock for me, as well as for all ceramics students at the department to hear these news. As a result, the student body is due to meet with the Executive on Tuesday the 12th of February, to express their concerns. It would be incredibly helpful if they could bring any messages with them that express support for their cause.

I ask that all of you forward this message to anyone who has studied, taught at, or visited the Glasgow School of Art Ceramics Department.

Messages of protest regarding the proposed closure should be directed to the Director of the Glasgow School of Art, Professor Seona Reid (s dot reid at gsa dot ac dot uk) or to the Head of the School of Design at the Glasgow School of Art, Professor Irene McAra McWilliam (i dot mcara-mcwilliam at gsa dot ac dot uk). Furthermore, messages can be emailed to Ester Svensson (thisisestersaddress at gmail dot com), who is a 4th year honors student in ceramics and she will print them out and present them at the student meeting with the GSA executive on this Tuesday, 12th February.

I thank you in advance for any support that you are able to offer.

Irene Bell, Turf Cart, 2007 (Detail), slipcast earthenware with underglaze drawing

I’ve added a new album of work by Irene Bell. Irene is a part-time lecturer in ceramics at the Glasgow School of Art. She also lectures first year Design students in the Core Studies program.

Bell draws inspiration from the undulations and sweeps of manipulated landscapes, in particular, golf courses and topiary. She specializes in freehand tonal drawing on raw clay, and the compositional relationship of image to form. Her compositions border on the dangerous transition between working and not-working, between eye pleasing, harmonious success and graphic disaster.

She also has a keen interest in the interaction between stationary objects and those in motion. Portions of each image appearing static, while others in the same composition appear to move. To view Irene Bell’s work, please click here.

A very small portion of the intricately carved ceiling of Roslyn Chapel, about 20 mins drive South of Edinburgh. There is a theory that the little boxes coming down from the ceiling represent musical notes. Each box has a pattern carved into it, which happens to be identical to the pattern which is formed by loose grains of sand, if they are placed on a piece of metal which makes that particular note.

Firstly, I would like to say a HUGE thank you to my husband, Campbell Brown and my brother, Filip Radlinski, who took it upon themselves over the last few weeks to devote much of their spare time in order to wrestle with and tame the technology behind this blog and website, including spending hours waiting in a telephone queue to speak to my hosting company.

Writing here is all very fun and easy but when it comes to things like backups, software updates or migrating to a new platform… (that’s nothing to do with trains, shoes or birds), dns pointers, etc, it’s all just a whole lot of incomprehensible gobblygook to me - or however that may be spelled, but you get the idea.

The website hopefully doesn’t look any different, but it’s all brand spanking new and shiny in the background, I assure you, and I NEVER would have been able to tackle it by my lonesome.

However, if you do come across a link that no longer works, please email me and let me know, so that I can fix it. There conceivably could be a few that have slipped through the very fine teeth of the virtual comb we used. AND if you have book marked any part of this blog or my gallery pages, it might be a good idea to make a new bookmark, as your old one may no longer work.

As a result of the changes I haven’t been able to make any updates to the site for a while - even though I’ve been here, and working hard in the studio (with a little break for the festive season, I must admit).

John Maguire, 2001. Tall Vase in studio courtyard. Thrown stoneware with cobalt wood ash glaze and white slip.

So apart from loud and wild Christmas parties, three day long Hogmanay (New Year’s) celebrations and my madly feverish preparation for my trip and forthcoming WIP in Oz, I’d like to announce that the first thing I’ve tackled this year website-wise is a new album full of images from John Maguire’s portfolio. Click here to view them.

Bill Brown, “24 (22:00)”, 2005, Stoneware with silk screen enamel transfer, 45 x 30cm

I’ve added a new album of work by Bill Brown, who is head of Ceramic Design at the Glasgow School of Art. Click here to view the images.

Although many single images of his work, spanning a lengthy career, can be found in various books, catalogs and international collections, I believe that this is a unique collection of images. It encompasses at least a decade of creative practice and he has very kindly allowed me to make them available online to share with everyone.

For me, Bill Brown’s work is an expression of a wonderful quirky sense of humour and intelligent observation of contemporary life, culture, the media and advertising, coupled with a mastery of industrial ceramic production techniques which include mould making and printing on clay.

The silk screen enamel printing technique used in his work is known as decals in some other parts of the world. Bill Brown screen prints his own full colour decals using on glaze enamels, after putting his photographs and graphic works through a digital colour separation process in Photoshop.

The piece displayed above is from the series “24″. It’s based on the idea of taking one photograph per hour to document a continuous 24 hour period in the life of the artist. This particular one includes a photograph taken at 10pm, of Charing Cross, a busy intersection in Glasgow City center, not far from the Glasgow School of Art.

I’ve just added some new photos of John Maguire’s work in progress to my photo album. Click here to view them. John is a sessional lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art and is about to start teaching a throwing block with the 2nd year students.

This entry discusses my glaze test results from week 15, which I’m in the process of writing up, but I couldn’t help myself as I was thinking of this as I was documenting the photos. I tested the following Magnesia Matt recipe and removed the Magnesia component, so to speak. The test ring pictured above is the result.

Magnesia Matt (without dolomite):
Potash Feldspar 18
Whiting 16
China Clay 33
Silica (Quartz) 22

This recipe is supposed to include Dolomite 12.

Here, it struck me that a most curious thing is happening. I always thought that the “mattness” in a magnesia matt was caused by the Magnesium Carbonate in Dolomite. Yet the glaze is matt without the dolomite! Looking at the base recipe without the dolomite, I would have expected a clear glaze, judging by the other tests I’ve done so far!

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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.

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