Friday 7 October 2011

New Kiln!





















I am thrilled to have a new kiln - well, new to me! It's a second-hand reconditioned one from Northern Kilns http://www.northernkilns.com/ It has all new electrics and a new control panel - they were so helpful and even gave me a lesson on how to use it - I highly recommend them to anyone looking for a kiln or for potter's supplies. I have attached photos of my new kiln and my studio. I have already done one firing and will be loading the kiln again today with a 2nd batch of my ceramic art. It is so brilliant to be able to fire more than one pot at a time, as up until now I have only had my Paragon glass kilns to use, this means that I could only fire one pot at a time - whereas with the new one I can fit in upwards of six pieces. This will so speed up my work and I'm buzzing with new ideas ...



When you look at the photos of the studio you will see glass butterflies and glass leaves hanging from the beams. These are some of the ones that were hanging on a tree in the New Ferry Butterfly Park for the whole summer. Myself and Chris Turrell-Watts, my artist partner in this piece of public art, had accepted that some of them were bound to be stolen - and had come to terms with that. Leaving attractively twinkling glass butterflies and leaves, that could easily fit in one's hand, in a public place for three months was bound to tempt somebody - or so we thought! When we took down the installation at the end of August and counted them we were thrilled to discover that the public had respected our work and every single piece was sill there. We then felt really guilty for having so little faith in people!


Anyway ... back to work ...

Wednesday 7 September 2011

7th Sept - latest pot and latest skull necklace







Here's a photo of my latest art pot and of my latest skull necklace. The necklace was a present for my youngest daughter's birthday. I made her some tiny skull earrings too, though I forgot to take a photo of those.

Monday 22 August 2011










































































22nd August 2011































So sorry I've neglected my blog for so long - main reason is that I am a full time carer for my mum as well as an artist. But still doing some of course - I'd go mad if I couldn't find a little time every day to create. Along with my friend Chris Turrel-Watts, we created a piece of public art in a magical wild area called The Butterfly Park in New Ferry Liverpool. We made dozens of larger than life glass butterflies and glass leaves and hung them from a large flowering Hawthorn tree. Looks fabulous when the sun is shining. I've also been working from home of course and have made an angel tile (see photo) but it cracked slightly when I fired it in my kiln - which was rather disappointing, to say the least. In the last few months I have really got into making my art vases, and will definitely be exploring more ideas in this direction. (see photos.) I've made a tree nymph piece too, which I really enjoyed (see photo.) Anyway, I'll be blogging on here a lot more frequently in future, so speak to you soon ....