Final Fossils: Field

After firing, my sky blue and lichen yellow tiles weren’t those colours at all, they were a weird collection of metallic shades and greys and blacks, they looked lifeless and ugly. They looked like fossils, like this:

Fossilised wood

These ugly things sat on my desk, I was disappointed and frustrated by how grim they were, uncomfortable to hold in the hand, and not at all easy on the eyes. What to do with them??

“Fossil” in the hand, an ugly little thing.

What if they were fossils? Where were they from, what was their story? I looked back over my initial interests within the brief, my fascination with the future and what might become of our cities. Perhaps these ugly things could be the result of a return trip to Earth after a long time away, colonising other planets, other solar systems. What were these ancient structures, these familiar trees now completely forgotten by human kind? Ugly samples, collected by excited scientists, categorised and labelled, then displayed in a museum in a faraway galaxy….

Another “fossil”, metallic glaze.

The yellow has come out in this one, and the circle of yellow glaze looks a little like lichen itself

Three tiles next to each other, hints of the colours and metallic sheens, textural but ugly.

A group of the finished tiles, resting on a cork board

Lichen Textures in Felt

Using hand dyed wool, silk fibres and silk dupion, I have been making textured felt to emulate the surfaces of the tree trunks I have been looking at in my project. If I had more time, I’d be interested in making a clay structure to sit inside the felted “tube”, that would hold it rigid and could be free-standing. I think a clay rod that had a cup form at either end (the interior of the cups could be glazed in lichen colours) would work. A group of them, stood in rows, like the rows of city trees, could be very effective.

Felted Bark Texture

Felted Bark Texture

Field: Texture

Three artists whose use of texture I find exciting!

Heather Knight

Textural tile looking at Lichen, in white porcelain, by Heather Knight

Heather works almost exclusively in white porcelain, using hand building processes to create textural wall tiles inspired by natural forms. I would be interested in exploring porcelain in the future, although not for this project (due in part to time constraints, but also my preference for the raku firing process), but the use of texture and direct observation and replication of textural patterns observed in nature are directly relevant to my project. In my own project, I will look at using white glaze to allow the textures to take the fore in my pieces, and compare them to coloured pieces.

Jenny Pope

Textural fragments, based on found pieces of bone, in porcelain, by Jenny Pope

Wearable texture, porcelain form by Jenny Pope

Jenny Pope’s work is heavily inspired by items she finds whilst beach combing, traversing familiar routes and finding unfamiliar objects along them. Like Heather Knight, she also works in white porcelain, and creates incredibly detailed textural pieces. I like the way her pieces are created to sit in groups, as collections of observational pieces, collections of fragmentary responses to fragmentary objects. Her direct response to found textures and grouping of themed pieces is interesting to me, and relevant to what I am working on.

Alysn Midgelow Marsden

Bark Cloth, Angelina and bronze mesh sample by Alysn Midgelow Marsden

Alysn Midgelow Marsden uses varied media and stitch embellishment techniques to make textural wall hangings and art sculpture, as well as leading technique based workshops, teaching her techniques to others. I first came across her work in 2008, and fell in love with the rich colours and stitched textures in her work. I’d like to utilise stitch and embellishment, as well as multi-media layering in my own pieces for this project.

To move forward, I’d like to explore contrasting media, such as ceramics with softer materials like felt, and explore creating texture in hard/soft materials, and combining them to create juxtaposed pieces that have conflicting properties.

The Reduction Technique in Raku

Using sawdust and tins to create a reduction atmosphere to mature the glazed pieces

The glowing pieces are lifted from the kiln, and placed on a bed of sawdust and newspaper. More newspaper and sawdust is thrown over them, and then as the material catches and flares up, the tins are slammed down over them, and held with kiln bricks. The smoke is thick and acrid, and gets up the nose, in the eyes, and lingers in the clothes.

Glazed, but not yet Fired

I spent my day mixing up glazes to use in my final pieces, before applying them to my tiles using an airgun. I have glazed my lichen tiles in three colours, one lichen yellow, one sky blue, and one in dark copper blue. I have applied the glazes differently in sets, to see how they fire. Half of each colour test have been sprayed face on, with the entire clay surface covered in glaze, and half have been glazed at an oblique angle, to give the effect of raking light. This has left the tile only partially glazed, the deeper contours are unglazed clay, which will blacken during the raku firing process, which will hopefully make the textures on the tiles very stark. I am firing on Thursday, so I should be able to see the results on that afternoon.

Recipes I have used are: Lichen Yellow; Lead Sesquisilicate (50%), Borax Frit (50%), Tin Oxide (5%), China Clay (5%), Red Iron Oxide (1%), Potassium Dichromate (8%)

Sky Blue; High Alkali Frit (100%), Whiting (10%), Ball Clay (10%), Copper Oxide (3%), Titanium Oxide (4%)

I have also done a small group using the same copper blue as I have used for my face tiles for my other project, I am interested to see how they come out.

A mixed group, showing the “straight on” and “raking light” glazing applications

“Raking Light” glaze application, the areas of bare clay will go black after firing

“Raking Light” application of glaze

Straight on application of the sky blue and lichen yellow glazes

Intense Reduction in Raku firing + Copper Oxide= Gorgeousness!

So, I glazed and fired my thumb pots, and they have come out beautifully! We used a really intense reduction in this firing, which really brought out the copper in the glazes. This is something I would like to explore further in the future, to see whether I can consistently get the copper to be a strong feature in the glaze.

Mine, Danni and Carmen’s work, glazed and ready to fire

Work in the kiln, getting up to temperature

The bins full of sawdust, ready to put the work into to create the reduction atmosphere necessary to bring out the colour in the glazes

It’s hot work, putting the pieces into the sawdust ignites it, creating a whoosh of flame and smoke, which only increases and intensifies as you heap newspaper and more sawdust on top of the work. Once the bin is full, and almost too fiery to approach, the lid is slammed on, and the whole bin is put into the extraction cupboard, which draws away the smoke.

This is how my pots came out, I’m really really pleased with the results.

This is a pot glazed with a black copper matte glaze, gorgeous colour flashes within the copper

And the underside of the same pot

My favourite, the interior is the most gorgeous intense copper, with black and blue iridescent flashes around the rim

Gunmetal, blue and green flashes at the rim, copper interior, and a white crackle glaze on the exterior surface

Excellent result. For my next firing, I want to use glazes I have mixed up myself, and see if I can get them to exhibit the same strong copper flashing as I managed to get in the above pot.

Gathering Lichen Textures

This is how I have been gathering Lichen textures in the city, for my clay tiles.

First, I go for a walk along a predetermined route, planned out according to routes I take to and from university. I select a “good” tree, such as this one:

A “good” tree, with lots of surface textures and lichens

I carry the pre-cut clay tiles with me in a tupperware, sandwiched between layers of paper. I remove one, select a suitable area, and press the clay onto the tree surface, using my fingers and thumbs to squash the clay into the depressions in the bark and the lichen. I am using Raku clay for these ones.

Lichen with the clay tile pressed onto it

I then wait a few minutes for the clay to dry a little, before carefully peeling it away from the trunk.

Peeling off the clay tile

Almost fully removed, the texture of the lichen clearly marked upon the surface of the tile

My tiles have all been bisque fired now, I just need to mix up glazes and fire them. This is what my desk currently looks like, full of tiles and other bisque fired work! Now just to glaze and fire them all.

My cluttered space, full of bisque fired clay, and some glazed (but unfired) bits

Textures Within the City

Today I went out for a walk with a handful of pre-cut clay tiles, to press onto interesting textures as I came upon them. I focused mainly on natural textures, such as lichens and tree bark, but I did take a few of stone surfaces and tarmac. The natural surfaces made far more complex and interesting imprints than the man-made surfaces. Linking back to my research into happiness within the urban environment, I think the visual appeal of the naturalistic tile impressions is down to an inherent human preference for the “grown” texture/surface over the “made” texture/surface. When people are asked in public surveys about their reasons for liking where they live, often they say that the green spaces in their location make them happier. I think that the modern age approach to building (sleek steel, glass and smooth facades) is markedly devoid of naturalistic texture or colour, and this contributes to the general unhappiness expressed by city dwellers. I am wondering whether this can be remedied or alleviated in some way by creating textural interiors, in mood-enhancing colours, and so I am exploring colour/texture in these tiles. I will look at glazing some of them in natural colours (lichen greys and yellows, bark browns and mossy greens), and some of them in the colours that are said to make you feel most positive (blues), and see how the colour of the glaze affects the impact of the tile.

Tree bark photographed on my walk, beautiful mossy greens!

Knobbly, rough and lumpy bark on the same tree

Yellow and grey lichens on a tree, the colours and the textures are both visually engaging

Excellent textural contrasts between the lichens and the cut twigs on the trunk of this tree

I then pressed the tiles onto tree trunks over lichens and varying bark textures. I used raku clay, as well as sanded buff. The sanded buff picked up clearer details, but I prefer the look and the feel of the raku clay for this exercise, so I think I will continue with the raku clay.

Raku clay tiles with bark and lichen textures

Sanded buff tiles with bark and lichen textures

Raku clay bark texture

Sanded buff clay with strong lichen imprint

Gathering Clouds

I have been taking some photos of the sky whilst out wandering around Cardiff, looking into the same sources of inspiration behind the work of Toni Grote and Georgie Vinsun. Looking at these photos, I want to isolate colour palettes, then explore how I can recreate them using glazes on my cup-buttons and tiles.

Penarth: Greys, pinks, oranges and yellows

Cathays: Blues, Greys, Vanilla

Cathays: Slate blues and milky silvers

Parkway Station, Bristol: Lilac, Mauve, Peach and Orange

I want to see if I can express these sky colours using raku glazes, so need to find recipes for the various tones, and then experiment with them on test tiles, once I’ve got a reliable working pallette, I can begin glazing the cup-buttons and final tiles.