I have decided that November is going to be devoted to urban pathways and spaces. I have been using old maps as research for my silk screen printing design. I like the subtle lines, they remind me of an Agnes Martin grid painting.
I printed exactly the same area, at 50 year intervals, and then traced the main roads from one of the maps. When I placed the tracing paper over the next map, it was a perfect fit, I tried it on all the maps, and found that the main roads have not changed at all. It seems that the main streets are more permanent than the buildings on them, or the people who use them. The side streets have however changed constantly. At the earlier dates they were widely spaced, and then became very dense, and more recently became widely spaced again.
Some maps show the houses and public buildings, whilst others show only the streets. This means that I have also been thinking about the spaces around the buildings, and the patterns they make.
I want to start from a pathway or a map and build forms from there, and see where it leads. I also want to try using maps and pathways to add colour. to forms.
Porcelain
I will try and make my 15 sided pot in porcelain, the sides will be 16 cm high before drying and firing.
This has worked - see separate blog post
Wall piece
Make wall piece(s) based on pathways and maps
I like this. I had planned to make more of these and layer them, possibly with some rotation on each level to create an open spiky form.
Rob however had other ideas, see interlocking pots below.
Interlocking pots
After looking at the wall piece above Rob suggested that I make forms that can fit together or be separate, with an open feel, and to make these without any plan for the finished pieces, just build them up. He pointed me towards Palma Babos.
I have started this in Potclays crank, as this clay should allow me to take longer. The Babos pieces are more regular than I have been making, basically they are stacked cubes. I want to make something more complex and irregular. The first piece is the most promising, as it has a look of streets and buildings. However, the different heights of the random pieces is making it a nightmare to go upwards. The second and third pieces are not working at all, and will be reclaimed. In the meantime I had a break and made this, it has about 5 layers..
I will go back to the first piece and work out how to build upwards, despite the pieces being different heights. I tried cutting slots in one of the slab pieces and then sliding it horizontally into place. This worked, but the joins don't appear very strong and I am worried about future cracking. This idea might work if I was adding one whole layer of pieces on top of another and I opened slots to allow vertical pieces to go through? Perhaps I need more supporting pieces or a gallery. More supporting pieces would mean that I lose some of the openness. I don't like the idea of being able to see a gallery at all! I need to think how to solve the problem 'without planning the final outcome'. This is sort of interesting, but very difficult and annoying. In order to build up the pieces as requested, they need to be leatherhard, and that limits the building options. I suspect that this task was to make me more free, but it has had the opposite effect,.
Slip Inlays
My aim was to use slip inlays to make street patterns. I tried this on two tiles but am not really happy with the results. I will add a clear shiny glaze to see the final effect. I am not sure that the flatness is for me, compared to an etched or carved surface. This is making me nervous about printing on the wavy pot, perhaps I could add some texture by printing thickly.
Update - I added the second 'adjusted' celadon glaze to this tile. The tile had white slip inlays, and the celadon colour looks better on these parts. There are pinholes and pits in the glaze that need addressing.
Water etching
Use water etching to represent pathways
There is a very obvious problem with the shellac application on this tile, and my other etched tile, but at least I got to explore negative spaces.
Screen printing
If the 'map inspired' items produce a pleasing effect, I will try to convert them to a screen print to add colour to the earthenware wavy form.
Update - I have worked out what I want to do on the screen printed piece now.
Celadons
Collect and test celadon recipes.
I have tested 6 celadon glazes, they have been waiting for three weeks for a reduction firing, but went in on Friday, so should just make it for the end of November. I am excited to see the results.
See seperate celadon post
Brown/Green glaze
I like this glaze, because it has a weathered look, it looks as if it has rust spots. In practice 2 some of my weathering effects using oxides and slips worked better on the test tiles than on the final pieces, so I think it might be good to get some effects from the glaze itself.
Test tile
The original recipe said it should be applied thinly, to increase the spots and avoid running. My test tile supported this, the single dipped areas being more spotted than the double and treble dipped areas.
Picture to follow
Attempt 1 Scaling up - testing on larger piece
So, I then tried spraying it onto a larger layered piece. This was a bit of a disaster as the spray gun knocked over the piece, and broke it in two. However it enabled me to do two tests rather than one. I sprayed the first half lying it down flat, and followed Cath's suggestion of adding more water for a thinner application and then dipping the second half. The sprayed half resulted in no spots at all. The dipped half had some spots, but some green coloured runs where the glaze was thicker.
As the recipe contained zinc and was prone to running, it struck me that this was like a matt micro crystalline glaze. I know that water content can be critical with crystals, so I decided to test the specific gravity.
I have created a separate blog post on the specific gravity tests
Anna Lambert base
I want to try a pot with the base join invisible from the outside. I will try that on a small pot. In the longer term perhaps I could made a wooden or plaster base and rest the clay on that.
Stand and Deliver
In response to my steet map wall piece , I have decided to build up in layers using the basic shape. I have decided to use this as a stand and deliver piece, using the spaces for food. I ran a few suggestions past Cath, and she voted in favour of this being for homemade cakes, so I will stock up on baking ingredients in advance. This is proving quite difficult to make, as I have rotated the horizontal pieces, and changed the vertical pieces on each level.
I like brutalist architecture, so have added a carved texture, similar to that found between concrete slabs. Rob said it looked like 'a multi-storey car park' so I guess I must be getting there with the brutalist look.
He also suggested I add more layers than originally planned. This means I need to keep the original tiers from drying out, whilst making new slabs and drying them to the same consistency. I am a little concerned that I will get a cracking problem on the joins if I add wet slabs to dry or if the slabs dry too much. I have sprayed the original form and wrapped it carefully. I have started rolling the new slabs, and will do more on Monday. The heating in the workshop is broken, and drying is slow, but I really needed to cut more slabs at the beginning, or work faster.
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