Week Seven

Week 7

Photographs by Michelle Andrews

The highlight of the week was a visit to the pottery studio of Belinda Stanton in Maleny.  Belinism Studio is tucked away next to the land of Maleny Dairies, in a moist, green landscape.  Belinda is a charming lady and makes these wonderful pieces, full of secret happiness.

                 

She and her husband have an open studio the last weekend each month.  I really enjoyed chatting with them and having a look at her studio.  She explained that her best seller is the coffee mug and she makes and sells a hundred every month.  This is their bread and butter and they make a living.  Recently, as her popularity grows, she has found that the more sculptural pieces are starting to sell more.  She designs her functional pieces around the idea of 'eating off the couch'.  This means her mugs have a rounded bottom so they won't fall over if resting on the lounge!

Back at uni this week, I decided to throw some vase forms. The first batch, which are wrapped in plastic in the above photo, used the very soft BS clay from Walkers.  It was easy to work with but I found that if I made anything more than 10cm tall, it slumped.  The clay was just too soft.

So I then mixed white stoneware with it at the ratio: 75% to 25%.  This was a little more difficult to centre and cone, but it was stronger and held its shape when thrown.  I tried various vase shapes, including collaring the top to bring it in to a smaller aperture. 

I wasn't sure how to finish the vases and thought I would try various ideas, some of which would have to be executed at the leather hard stage, like carving.  The below link of Korean carving and inlay was very inspiring: 

Mr Romance (2015). Icheon Ceramics [Video File].  Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/118673167

However, the after effects of Cyclone Debbie closed the uni for two days, and then there was the weekend, so the vases dried out too much to carve.  I am very disappointed but will have to try something else.

As an aside, I am now happy that I left the internship for another reason.  I had committed two days per week working there and now I am finding a benefit in having those days free to work on projects for uni.