Author Archives: Bridget Macklin

I am an artist working in the field of ceramics creating fragile porcelain pieces which are inspired by the environment or by peoples relationships with the environment and with each other and which often incorporate finds to support their narrative.

Its all about the Edges

so much to do
So much to do, so little time!

During the Ceramics Diploma, at City Lit, last year we learned a few of the tutors’ personal mantras.  This week I have been in the studio for every free moment.  I am currently making work for The Great Northern Contemporary Crafts Fair and  a Sculpture & Ceramics exhibition in the Royal Opera Arcade Gallery off Pall Mall, both of which are taking place next month .  There is a lot to make as I want to show as many representative pieces from my post-diploma ideas as possible.  All week one of the diploma mantras has been running round my head to such an extent that I think I am now saying it in my sleep.

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Ceramics diploma: Coil project, year 1.

My first hand built piece for the course was, frankly, looking back on it, an embarrassment.  I think I even felt so at the time but now, two years on, it shames me.  So I am doing myself a bit of cathartic good by showing it here!

If we ignore the fact that I did not know then that mixing tin oxide and chrome oxide results in a very nasty colour, I look at this piece now and hang my head – what was I thinking?

Well time has moved on.  I now have two years of Annie Turner’s wise words – It’s all about the edges – running through my head.  It is very true.  You can get away with a multitude of sins if the eye goes straight to a good looking profile.  It doesn’t matter what the edge is; it can be bevelled, flat, thik, thin, what ever you like.  But if you get it wrong; uneven, thicker in some places than others, it takes away from everything else that you are trying to achieve.

2015-09-17 09.14.13
Hours of work is now going into my edges.

I have sweated over my edges a great deal this week and I know they are not in any sense perfect.  But I do believe they are coming.  And I firmly believe that Annie is right – you can hide a lot if your edges look good.  My latest pieces do look a million times better thanks to the edges.  So now it is simply a case of getting everything else to match them.  I only need to concentrate on the shape and balance of the piece, the surfaces, the glazing – all whilst not losing sight of the importance of the edges.  So there is very little now to do before I start making masterpieces!  Approximately another 10,000 hours should just about do it!

Do One Thing and Do It Well.

Earlier in the summer, at a point when I was concerned about ‘Life after the Diploma’, I started applying for everything I came across; exhibition; events; support programs for emerging artists.  You name it I threw my hat in the ring.   Last week I was slightly hanging my head – I had had either no response or a rejection from each one.  Clearly no-one else thought as much of my work as I do myself.  Conceit had got the better of me.

The Battersea Vessel low res
The Battersea Vessel

If I had been checking my spam folder regularly I might have been a bit chirpier, having discovered that my work had been accepted for the exhibition Battersea Arts Station.  Suddenly rummaging around for hours in the muddy banks for the River Thames is worth it – yippee, my first proper exhibition!

But then things went a bit crazy in my inbox.  It was as if somebody had been reading my blog and felt sorry for me.  They had then rung round all their contacts and suggested that they could stave off my suicidal tendencies if they asked me to take part in something.  So Now. in addition to Battersea, I need to find work for the Royal Opera Academy Gallery in London, just off Pall Mall and for the Great Northern Contemporary Crafts Fair.  All three events take place in October and will be rapidly followed by the November Open Studios.

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There will be another one along shortly.
Well what was I to do?  I suppose I could have told them all that I was too busy.  But opportunities like these don’t grow on trees.  You have to grab them when you can, don’t you?  Particularly when you are just setting out and you need the breaks.  I just wish rather that they came with some sort of timetable so that, just like London Buses I could be reasonably confident that there would be another one along soon!

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Organised chaos has taken over the studio.

So now I have a bit of a tight schedule.  Suddenly I need a whole lot of work and, given that they all seem to like the newer pieces on website, I cannot simply hand over the work from my final exhibition – not that I would want to anyway.  I am so much more pleased with what has come since.  I know have a day by day plan of what needs doing when which includes working in the studio on Saturdays and means that there are going to be a great many days when my work space is going to represent organised chaos.  Moral of the story – keep applying, keep your spirits up and be prepared to make like crazy from time to time.  By the end of November I shall be getting quite practiced at this form of vessel and, as Fred Gatley told me ‘do one thing and do it well’, I shall stick to that.  I just wish he had warned  me that although there would be times when the phone does not ring, there might also be times when you have to add ‘and do it quickly’!!