Apart from being an Edinburgh local, JK Rowling is an author who’s work I really admire. In this video she addresses Harvard graduates in 2008.
Why did I post it here? She talks in a heartfelt and honest way about her life experience, and how failure – that is finding herself as a single mum with no job and living in poverty – affected her life – as did her first job working for Amnesty International.
Frances Stark “But what of Frances Stark, standing by itself, a naked name, bare as a ghost to whom one would like to lend a sheet?”
Well, hello! It’s been a long time. I’ve been very shy of the computer keyboard since I injured my right arm because I wasn’t mindful enough of how to use a keyboard properly. Now I’m beginning to return to computer use, a little at a time, even though I continue to struggle with RSI. It’s amazing how much something like that can affect your life.
On Thursday night (that was the 12th Feb) I went to a private view at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, Sauchiehall Street. The exhibition was of work in paper collage and drawing by Frances Stark, an artist from the USA.
I had a really marvelous time. The CCA is a great venue – a very welcoming, open and accessible space. They served us G&T’s instead of the usual wine – which would win anyone over, just by novelty value, I’m sure. Frances Stark is very clever and has a great sense of humour – not to mention a lot of patience, judging by the nature of the collages, which in many cases were INLAID. I think she’s a closet ceramicist really. I’ve been wondering what to make of the piles of paper, documents and receipts building up in my own life as well. Anyway, the show is well worth a look.
As far as my website is concerned, I’ve made a few changes. Since I’m no longer a student, the albums showing all the experimentation, processes and techniques I used towards my MPhil have been relegated to a less prominent position. They are, however, still available, should you wish to look at photographic documentation of the glaze testing techniques I used, screen printing ceramic transfers , mould making and slip casting, making pvc moulds, fixing a gas kiln, etc etc.
I have put more emphasis on my portfolio and finished work, and will be from now on working towards starting a ceramics business as an artist. Wish me luck!
To see the latest update on what I’ve been up to in the studio as part of my MPhil work, click here.
Click here to see the latest update I have made to my site; work in progress, weeks 16 and 17.
You’ll find my MPhil work in progress in my studio album, semester 2, 2008. I add to it every two weeks.
On another note, if you are in Scotland, in the vicinity of Glasgow, please come and visit us for Open Studio weekend. The Open Studio weekend is being held across all WASPS sites all over Scotland. The Glasgow Ceramics Studio where I work, will of course be opening it’s doors alongside all the other artists’ studios.
It’ll be on Saturday 4th of October (11am till 5pm) and Sunday 5th of October (12 noon till 4pm). You’ll be able to see where we work, our work in progress, as well as finished work for sale to suit all budgets. Hope to see you there.
This movie is about an 18MB file. I suppose it depends on the speed of your connection how long it will take to load, but for me it takes about 2 minutes. The actual length of the movie is under a minute.
It shows a PICBasic program which turns LEDs on and off in sequence running on a programmable PIC chip. The sequence of the lights is the same as I will use for my final installation, although the time period the lights are on is only 1 second in this instance. Each of the lights represents an LED tag which will come on long enough to scroll a message across it.
You can see that one LED tag has been connected to where the first diode should be. It reads “Message” but as it’s on for one second, you only get to see the first couple of letters scroll across it.
I would like to offer sincere thanks to Dave Russ, without whose help this project would not have been possible.
This is a very short movie showing some of my work in progress – a translucency test in Glacier Porcelain, fired in reduction to cone 9/10. Glaze is Leach cone 8 clear (well, a variation of it). I’ve put the LED tag behind, so you can see how the text would look through the porcelain as it scrolls. By the way, the LED tag doesn’t blink like that. The blinking is due to the processing speed of my digital camera, which is rather old.
Susie O’Byrne is a studio holder at the Glasgow Ceramics Studio in WASPS, where I also have my space. The piece you can see below is roughly life size, or about 50cm tall. It is painstakingly built up out of small patches of individually printed paper porcelain sheets. The work is hung in the kiln during firing to retain it’s incredible grace of form. It is an anthropomorphic piece, inspired by dreams and images which populate the subconscious, and informed by nature study in Africa.
Susan O’Byrne, Cheetah, 2008
This amazing sculpture is on exhibition at the Aberdeen Art Gallery, in Aberdeen, Scotland until the 31st of May, as part of the Aberdeen Artists’ Society seventy-fourth exhibition of Painting, Sculpture, Drawing, Photography, Architecture, Video, DVD, Design and Craft. If you would like to see it for yourself, information on gallery address and opening hours is here.
My lovely brother has just sent me a link to a blog that explains how to make a light tent for photographing small objects out of a cardboard box and some tissue paper. I wonder why I haven’t thought of it already? I’ll definitely find this very useful when re-shooting photos of my work.
Here’s the link: Macro photo studio.
