Monday, July 19, 2010

A blog to follow

I often enjoy this blog.  Today's post is about Pendant TEELICHT an unconventional ceramic tea light.
slipcast.blogspot.com 

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Sunday on the Square Art Shows

Today I made my way to my hometown, London Ontario. An artist at the Covent Garden market has organized this event which is in its second season. Here is a shot of my set up early in the day a few weeks ago. It was interesting to sit and consider the responses from people. The event is relatively new and hopefully it will catch on. The weather was warm, breezy and just a few clouds in the sky. It was a fun day meeting many new people. Today was the second time I attended to sell work. I will keep you updated on my next sale.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Another bowl of tea.

"A tea spoon should be made in the way that it does not look beautiful." -Rikyū
The preceding quote clearly expresses the tea ceremony aesthetic. I have had an interest in Zen Buddhism for several years now. It is probably one of the reasons I fell in love with wood-fired ceramics and the tea ceremony. Sen no Rikyū was an influential figure in the development of the tea ceremony. If you have an interest in this subject and or Sen no Rikyū you should read The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura. Rikyū along with Chojiro are responsible for the creation of Raku ceramics. Though I shall write about this later. The Royal Ontario Museum (here is a link to the image collection on the ROM website) is a good place to start to see some of the Ceramics used in the Tea Ceremony. They also have a replica tea room on display which is always fun to go and see. Well now for the pictures here are some more samples of my woodfired work. The second image is a porcelain vase that was soda fired.









Saturday, July 3, 2010

More Video and pics from February

Here is another installment form the February wood firing. I would like to post one of Jenny's speeches and some pics of Kass, Jenny and the pots we fired. I'm not sure how but I lost the high res images from the kiln unload.












Mad Potter in action!

 
If the video is still broken Here is the YouTube link
I still have to catch up on posting my work from the last year. Here is some video from our second woodfiring. I had posted a short clip of Kass unloading the first kiln. Well here is a short of clip of Jenny. And here is her blog. http://jennykylemadpotter.blogspot.com/

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Tea bowl and Cereal bowl

These two pieces the Tea bowl above and the cereal bowl below were fired in my last kiln firing at Sheridan. Most of the imagery I work with on my ceramics relate to nature and the function of the vessels containing water. 

Wednesday, June 23, 2010