Brendon Adams workshop at 300 Pt Chev Rd, Point Chevalier, Auckland.

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A random teapot was made by using the gin bottle slip ware, half a lemon slip ware and a handle I made using one of Brendon’s moulds with a lid and feet which were some of Brendon’s own slip ware. I needed some extra slip which was tipped onto some plaster to partially dry and then applied to cover the gap made by repositioning the spout.

The exercise was to experience the joining of slip ware . Vinegar was used for this as if magic water or more sodium was applied the slip ware would melt. A liquifaction moment occured when the holes under the spout were made. The slip just melted so to save the piece some dried plaster was pushed onto this spot to harden it up. I believe a chemical reaction occurs for this to work.

Some bisque ware from this module was glazed with Brendon Adams current glazes. The container was covered in bronze slip and wiped off and the inside had a stable white glaze tipped inside. As you can see a honey glaze was used on the small bottles which I initially tipped on the inside and then used a heat gun so the outside layer of glaze would stick.

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I filled the gin bottle and lemon with a white glaze after applying bronze slip on the outside and wiping off. After tipping it out I used the heat gun to dry the outside so the next outside layers of glaze would stick. I sprayed the glaze on these items and used aramont blue green on the bottle and turquoise glaze on the lemon.

These items apart from the container have been left with Brendon to fire at his work heat temperature which is over 1200 degrees celsius. The container which I slab worked will need to be fired at a lower temperature to keep the terracotta colour.

Slip mould for containment exercise for end of module. A gin bottle to be encased in slab container. This is a literal interpretation of containment but as gin can affect your mental and emotional processes it also covers psychological containment.

An example of a slump mould of a Waka made yesterday. Awaiting for it to dry and hopefully will have an opportunity to use it next week.

Workshop at Brendon’s and Katherine’s studio: from 15th July 2020.

Discussion as to what our projects were. I am keen to make a food Kete mould. To prepare for next workshop by filling kete with polystyrene and used clay.

Workshop time spent making slip trail slab pictures in wood frame moulds. Clay rolled and cut to place over wood mould. Slip trail to slab on fish and chip paper or around photo on news paper. Once slip trail shiny turn over and roll on slab. Place slab over wood slab and place on something so it can be dropped from a low height to encourage the clay to drop into frame. Cut excess clay and tidy up edge and place foot or handles as you want. Clean up rims and place to dry for a bisque firing.

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Porcelain slip poured into moulds. Bisqued at 900 degrees centigrade. Bronze slip applied to textured areas and wiped back. Buttercup slip sprayed on first and aramont blue green sprayed on top. Red terracotta terra sigillata painted on bottom of plates prior to bisque fire. This has burnt off at 1200 degrees centigrade.

White stoneware clay applied to inside of mould with the wood pieces clamped together. Taken apart once clay dried.

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Red terracotta sigillata applied to green ware before bisque fire at 900 degrees centigrade. Coloured slip on top of bronze slip applied to squished native birds.

The theme for slab building has been Rakau (trees). The larger tree bowl was hard slab work and the smaller bowls were made of soft slab .

A hump mould was used to form the hard slab tree bowl and the essence of the tree on the inside was cut out of black clay and a groggy clay was used for the bowl. Cardboard rolls were used to form the trunk like legs which were joined to small pinch pots. The idea of the legs came from a 1965 book written by Carlton Ball and Janice Lovoos titled Making Pottery without a Wheel, texture and form in clay. The inspiration for the tree bowls came from being in Penny Ericsons studio who has been our tutor for this module. The Glazing was a bit of a surprise On the top photo of the bowl as I had used some of Toms white engobe with a mixture of oxides ie. copper oxide and cobalt and manganese and what I thought was a clear glaze now appears to be a frit which has run off some of my pieces. I actually like the result on the big bowl as think the coloured clay tree may have been too intense for my concept of tree essence. I have learnt now that it is important to test the glazes first.

The smaller tree bowls were made in a mould. I cut out small circles and placed them in the shape of trees and then used some wet stoneware clay to fill in the gaps and have the appearance of tree trunks. The circles were given some texture so they would take up some of the oxides.

• Further examples of slab work.

October 2020. Slab building module with Penny Ericsson. “Using The Land”.

Following on from last years “Clay as canvass”.

Our brief is to make a series of lidded multi sided boxes using hard slabs with surface treatment started at the time of building and based on imagery from our local environment.

We Began the exercise by quickly sketching at least 10 visual forms from Penny’s garden of paradise and from the view. After rolling out the slabs of clay such as speckled buff in her rolling machine and then rolling with our own rolling pins until we got the correct thickness we started applying some surface treatments. We needed to carve and scrape, impress, wax resist, underglaze paint, use torn and cut stencils and stamps and roulettes.

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Our next step was to work towards making some small examples of work to use for glaze testing.

We had a square cut in some paper to put over a sketch to focus on an area which appealed and then we needed to draw a patten to be able to focus with hand building.

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Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

November Assessment at Owhanake

Barn. View of my exhibition items.

Glaze pallet used this year , 2019.

Modules of Throwing, slab, paper clay, pinch and coil and mould making .

My Ceramic manifesto for works from 2019 and 2020.