Wood fired iron rich clay, shino glaze, kurinuki.
I wood fire my pieces in a small town near Canberra called “Gundaroo” while helping firing a renown Australian Potter called Ian Jones. We fire in a traditional Japanese style kiln called “Anagama” using a mix of Pine and Cypress timber and the firing takes 120 hours. It’s a labour intensive process, both the preparation and the firing itself.
Some of the pieces are made in a Japanese technique called “Kurinuki” which consists of making the entire piece by carving out a block of clay. A very time consuming method but it allows to achieve very unique shapes. That’s how I made the boxes and the whiskey cups.
The first 3 rock forms are inspired by the surrounding landscape I live in, mainly by the Hawkesbury Sandstone rock formations that we find along the Sydney coastal areas.
Walking barefoot around the rocks in my own quiet time evokes a visceral connection with my deeper self and the earth I am standing on. It acts as a reminder that my soul has been on this earth for a very long time making that interaction between us very familiar.
To achieve the surfaces on these pieces there is a direct interaction between the clay and the rocks. By doing so, I aim to record the rock surface at that moment in time as it will be constantly changing, being warned away by erosion it will never look the same. I envision those pieces as a 3 dimensional photograph, and what is appealing to me is their tactility and the energy that they carry within.