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Artist Research

Margaret O'Rurke

Margaret is a ceramic artist who incorporates light into her work in incredible ways. She uses porcelain to play with light and shadow, creating the most beautiful, delicate pieces.

I adore Margaret's work and I feel it's very relevant to what I was working on in this project, I only wish I'd come across her sooner.

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Narrative of the Senses

The tin glaze came out well, I like the different thicknesses. I intended there to be another shade between the white and transparent ones but it didn't come out as thick as I hoped, still happy with how they turned out.

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Ceramics

A final practice on the wheel before college is finished. The first time in a long time that I've made anything I felt worthwhile keeping on the wheel. Definitely going to miss this over the summer.

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Narrative of the Senses

I made something to suspend my bowls from for the final presentation, I am a little afraid I'm straying into mobile territory now but we'll have to see when it comes out of the kiln.

I added some texture for extra interest, and used the cutout holes to make some small bead-like things that I can attach with wire afterwards.

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Narrative of the Senses

I took my bowls down to the photography studio, Paul suggested suspending the bowls, something I hadn't thought of. We experimented with different lighting, playing with the shadows. This was really good fun and I'm happy with how the pictures turned out. The only thing I didn't like so much was the composition, it just felt slightly static and linear. This didn't seem to fit with my exploration of natural dappled light, I would have liked if they could be hung at different depths and were able to interact with each other a little more.

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Narrative of the Senses

My bowls survived the kiln with only some slight warping. I'm very pleased with the results and am excited to glaze them in the tin glaze. I think the freckled aspect of the glaze will work well with my exploration of dappled light.

As you can see below one of my bowls had a few small cracks, it's not the end of the world as the bowl is still in one piece. I'm hoping they will seal up when they go in for the glaze firing but it could also make them worse.

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Ceramics

The results from the smoke firing, a bit disappointing to be honest. I saw some of the things that came out of the other bin and they worked much better so something must have gone wrong with the bin my piece was in. Also I think the smoke residue would have shown up better on a white clay, I think the terracotta was too dark. Despite the disappointing end result I enjoyed the process, it was fun and interesting, it's nice to try things you wouldn't normally get a chance to.

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Narrative of the Senses

Although I'm not happy with the shape and weight of these mugs, I do like the pattern and I think the colours came out well after the transparent glaze was applied. The printing techniques were interesting and I wouldn't be opposed to doing something like this again, though there would be alot of things I would do differently.

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Ceramics

We took down the beads from the Wearable/Unwearable project off the tree, and were given the chance to glaze them. I glazed two of my beads in a tin glaze, the spiky one in an even layer of glaze, and the other one in three varying levels of glaze. I also but two unglazed beads into the firing as the higher temperature would turn them a nice chocolaty brown. I love how the tin glaze turned out, the freckles are gorgeous and it picks up the textures really well, I would love to use this glaze on my bowls.

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Ceramics

I put one of my beads from the Wearable/Unwearable project into the smoke firing that Mary was running. I've never done something like this before so I'm excited to see how it will turn out.

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Ceramics

These were some paintings from the same museum, I thought they had a lovely essence of light and wanted to include them on here as light is an integral part of my project.

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Ceramics

Some pieces from the same museum that I felt related to my project in some way. The vessels above had all these small, delicate holes inside and reminded me of the bowls I'm making. I bet these would cast lovely shadows if you put a light inside.

This vessel also reminded me of my project in a similar way. The holes with chunks of glass inside are interesting, the glass on either side is bigger than the hole it's in and I can't figure out how the artist would have made this.

Though it's not ceramics I saw this piece of fabric up stairs in the museum, and the embroidered pattern strongly reminded me of the shapes I'm looking at in my project.

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Ceramics

I went to Musée d'art et d'industrie André Diligent de Roubaix, a museum in France with a large ceramics collection. They had all sorts of different ceramic pieces by different artists I just included some of my favourites here.

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Narrative of the Senses

My domes survived the kiln, just about. I made a second, smaller one out of a white clay, a nice contrast to the terracotta one I think. There was quite a lot of cracking in the kiln which I wasn't surprised by, I was just happy they stayed in one piece. I plan to but the terracotta dome back in for a high firing, it will turn a darker, chocolatey brown colour, contrasting even more with the white dome hopefully.

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Narrative of the Senses

These are my bowls with the holes cut into them. The holes are much more circular than my original shapes, this is because the tools I used were circular however I really like how it looks and there are some nice shadows being cast already which has me excited. Some of the areas between the holes are quite thin and fragile my only hope is that they don't crack when the bowls go in the kiln.

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Narrative of the Senses

The mugs survived the first firing, next step is to glaze them in a clear glaze, I'm hoping this will bring out the colour as it's quite dull at the moment. They are definitely way to heavy for my liking, and I made the handles to small but it's been good to try out some new techniques.

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Narrative of the Senses

We used a template to cut out the shape for the mug. Slip and scored the edges to join them, added a base and a handle. I made a jug and a mug as well as two dishes with the spare clay. I'm pleased with the dishes, but the mug and jug are much to hefty for my liking. The slab of clay was to thick and has left the mugs feeling quite chunky. If I was do to this again I would roll out the slab thinner and make the template smaller.