Trying to photograph bowls for the NCECA Clay National Application

Today I have been trying to photograph two groups of bowls - one with two bowls with celadon spots, and the other a group of five dark, oval-warped bowls. The photographs I have already don't have a high enough resolution for the application, and now, trying too hard, they are coming out all wrong. Too shiny, or too crooked...

Now I have booked time at our best photographer of ceramics - Ole Akhøj - on thursday - to see if he can capture what seems to eluding me.

Particularly the celadon bowls are difficult to capture. So I have just taken some different angles to be prepared for the session at Ole's on thursday. He can work out how to get their translucency, and avoid all the shadows!

Takashi Nakazato in the studio at Guldagergaard

Takashi Nakazato at Guldagergaard

Today (friday) and yesterday I have been at Guldagergaard where Takashi Nakazato has just started a month's residency.
Here are some pictures of his work drying in the sun outside the studio this afternoon.

Bowls have arrived safely in London!

I have just had a mail from Galerie Besson to say that the 5 bowls have arrived safely - no breakages!

Exhibition in Kalk Bay, South Africa this weekend

If I was in Cape Town this weekend I know where I would go: to see this exhibition up a steep cobbled street in Kalk Bay.
I love Katherine Glenday's work, and I have been following Andile's career ever since he came to Denmark in 2001 to take part in the first Denmark/South Africa Ceramic Project at Guldagergaard. Since then he has taken his BA in ceramics in Port Elizabeth, and established gallery and studio at the Old Biscuit factory in Cape Town. http://www.imisoceramics.co.za

Final selection

These five bowls have now been packed and sent off today to Galerie Besson in London for the exhibition "20 Years 20 Pots".

The title of the group is "Spots and Lines"

Working on improving my workshop

I have decided to reinstate my continental kick wheel (self built) in a central position in my workshop. I can use it as a work surface and I hope it will lead me back into throwing - something I had more or less dropped since buying a small electric wheel many years ago.

I took part in Victoria Christen and Ayumi Horie's workshop at Guldagergaard this summer

http://www.ayumihorie.com/

and just that brief day of throwing gave me ideas to work on...when everything I make is pinched or coiled it takes a long time to fill a kiln, and I want to be able to woodfire more often, filling the whole kiln with my own work, so as not to have to compromise on the way I want the firing to go.

I am also inspired by Clementina's new beakers -
http://clementinaceramics.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-tall-beakers.html
just the word "beaker" gives me ideas for a new shape to drink from...-- and they lend themselves ideally to thrown woodfired porcelain!

Some new candidates for London

Here is yet another version of the celadon spot pattern - will have to see all three together to find out which is best.

Here are the details of the exhibition:

Gallerie Besson
15 Royal Arcade
28 Old Bond Street
London SW1

TWENTY YEARS · TWENTY POTS 10 September – 2 October 2008 An exhibition of new works in celebration of our twentieth anniversary Gordon Crosby Bernard Dejonghe Katerina Evangelidou Anne Floche Ryoji Koie Rodney Lawrence Jennifer Lee Jacqueline Lerat John Maltby Bodil Manz Shozo Michikawa Priscilla Mouritzen Margaret O’Rorke Gwyn Hanssen Pigott Elizabeth Raeburn Inger Rokkjaer Alev Siesbye Vladimir Tsivin Annie Turner Hans Vangso

Pinched porcelain bowls at Galerie Besson in 1997

Pinched porcelain bowls, originally uploaded by woodfirer.

Part of the exhibition "1000 Bowls" at Galerie Besson in 1997

Five bowls

Pinched bowls, originally uploaded by woodfirer.

Perhaps these will the ones to go to London.....

Preparing to send the bowls to London

Now I have cleaned the bowls free of wadding and sharp edges and the like and have begun to find out which ones will be exhibited in London in September. Some of the others I will deliver to the Kunstindustri museum's shop tomorrow. 

The first bowl has spots of manganese and a thin skin of terrasiggilata, the next has spots of red clay terrasiggilata, and the third spots of celadon over a thin carbon trap shino.