Tag Archives: City Lit Arts

Put it on and Scrape it Back

I thought that I would follow on from my theme of last week in which I described one of Annie Turner’s matra to the ceramic  diploma students at city lit.  I popped in to college yesterday to borrow some shelves and some plinths for the upcoming Great Northern Contemorary Crafts Fair which I have been invited to take part in as an emerging artist and as a direct result of exhibiting with City Lit at New Designers this summer.

There they were, the new cohort.  Looking a bit anxious and having a group session showing their summer projects to the rest of the students with Annie.  Oh I remember that day!  Have I done enough?  Have I done the right kind of things?  Is my work good enough for me to be here?

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A series of vessels under construction for the Royal Opera Arcade gallery’s sculpture and ceramics exhibition in October
scraped back
Knowing where to stop is quite important or you run the risk of scraping all the way to nothing!

But here I am two years on and one look at Annie gently coaxing the students out of their ceramic shells is enough to remind me of Annie’s instruction.  All week I have been ‘putting it on and scraping it back’!

What this means in practice is that you can add a lot of decoration or thickness to a piece but that the magic comes when you start taking it back off again so that you are left with just a trace.  This image shows what I mean quite well.  At the start the  vessel looks dreadful – smudged colours and no definition.  But as you begin to scrape away the outer layers line and flow appears.  You can control it to some extent but the real trick seems to be to know how far back to go.  It can feel a bit like sharpening a huge beam of wood and ending up with a small pencil but if you get it right it is really satisfying.

It seems to me that I am suddenly discovering a way of working which I really enjoy and which other people seem to appreciate as well.  I now have 4 exhibitions in the next five weeks, a private commission and, of course, the next open studios.   All of them are based on work which involves a lot of scraping.  In fact it seems to me that there are times when most of a vessel ends up on the floor.  But if what people want is the bare bones, scraped thin – well that’s fine by me because the process is so satisfying!

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.

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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!