I'm a material-based artist, which means first and foremost I pay attention to the material. It’s a kind of consideration that just comes with the job. When I’m approaching a new project my first thought is always, what will the clay do? How will the ideas I have in my psyche manifest in material forms? I’ve always got one corner of my mind’s eye on clay, I’m always immersed in this sticky medium, whether through thought, through performance, or through video work I’m trying to pay attention to the clay. Leaning in and focusing on the material I can feel my own humanity reaching out to this sticky substance. It is not surprising that the Latin word attention means to stretch towards. Let’s stretch towards our material roots our soil caked- foundations let us stretch and immerse ourselves in the material realm that we exist. Let's draw ourselves in the landscape whose material properties guide us, and experiential phenomenon moves us. Let’s get dirty, let’s get sticky, let’s get thick into the mud, for it's when we find ourselves saturated in materials agency and when our consciousness permeates material walls that we can connect to the interwoven nature of the universe. 

matter of principle

For millennia we have looked at geological processes as the acts of gods. Volcanoes that blocked out the sun for months, floods that swept away whole states, these actions of nature would be deemed so powerful they were actions of deities. We cast these deities with our own minds and within our image. 

Geology has always elevated materials for me. The natural processes of the planet are directed by the properties of the 98 elements that make up our world. To study geology is to study the power of materials, to appreciate it, to recognize the power of the geothermal engines below our feet and the currents of air above our heads. To recognize that this power does not extend from human-like deities but extends from matter itself, is to recognize the vitalism present within matter itself. 

We personify, we deify, but do we ever think to materialize?

Mark Makers

It’s revealing how when we most need to access our own thoughts we reach for materials. Materials have embedded themselves in our daily lives. They are a reliable foundation we have turned to to help us understand the world and understand ourselves. 

Materials have a memory, they are the archives for our conscious worlds, a matter-based data-base that we get to inscribe with our meanings and our emotions. It's through this storage that we can better access and understand our own thoughts. It's the metric of material externalisation that helps us get some clarity in our conscious life, think Diaries, think libraries;. 

Whether it's Hammurabi's code scratched into thick clay or the London stock exchange digitised onto glass rimmed magnetic disks, we have always trusted material to hold our most “valuable” thoughts. Hammurabi's code only became palpable when his clay tablets became ceramic. Only once there was permanence in the physical form of his clay tablets would there be permanence in the laws of his kingdom. A mark that remains is a thought that remains. The presence of the people who first smudge clay-baked plains may be gone, but their smudges aren’t. 

To make a mark is human. To make a mark for another, that is humanity. 

Go smudge some clay, go paint a canvas because it's when we reach for the material that we reach for one another. 

We reach to make.

We reach to reflect.

We reach to share. 

Cunieform (2021)

-raw clay

Over it

I’m done with being mad. I’m over being disappointed. I’m over making plans and overdue on my Library books. Back into our own forts to binge over-watched streams and repost overdone memes. Back to listening to the half-truths and half-baked apologies. Back to the blame game by different names. Back to the dilly-dallying the lollygagging fuckall coming from Canberra.  A national government with no national leadership. A bunch of slug sucking, meatloaves in dollar store suits. All for the announcement, all for the photo op, all for everything except anything of actual value.

For 127 days Scotty twiddled his thumbs while workers went out of pocket for snap lockdowns. Four months from the end of job keeper till Scotty clicked that people might need federal assistance from day one of a lockdown. It’s all fine for Scotty though during that time he got paid $ 191,108. You didn’t work for 7 days, Oh well bad luck; Scotty does fuckall, give the man of fat wad of Melba’s! Oh, but he deserves it, it must be hard to have your boots licked while your dragging your feet.

 

Australia has done better than a lot of countries in dealing with Covid, that’s true. But there’s a difference between has and is, between Australia and the Federal Government. Treating Hotel quarantine like a hot potato and penny-pinching vaccine orders has shown this Prime minister for what he is; The Engadine Midas, everything he touches turns to shit.



This stuffed suit in his ivory lodge better stop taking other’s credit, better stop passing the buck, better stop kicking the can because when the rubber meets the road, we will all spin out on Scotty’s old soup cans. I can already feel the wheels starting to lose traction, I can feel the driver course-correcting while oversteering. Rest assured that when it comes to a stop, Scotty will be there to take credit for the car not bursting into flames. I can already hear the press conferences; I can already see the handshakes. I don’t think I’m over being angry.  I think I’m just more tired than I was before. I think I’m just over it. 

Empire of Dirt

Clay is the skeletal structure of our cities. An initial foundation laid long ago on the heads of kings and at the hands of potters. To enjoy the fruits of the metropolis is to bask in the properties of clay.

As anyone who has tried to line a bathroom knows, water is a top-tier escape artist. Always finding the cracks in the floor, water is eternally striving to reach lower ground. To have a vessel that can hold water and to hold it well, in today’s plastic and metal-clad society, is an underappreciated thing.

Fired terracotta pots have long been used to control water. From buckets for carrying, to cups for drinking the oldest pots used fired terracotta to keep liquids at bay. These permeable pots were made watertight by allowing milk to settle in their porous holes. As the fats became rancid, they clogged up the pot like fryer grease clogging skin pores. Suddenly with these vessels at hand water could be transported, it could be stored, and with that cities spread further and further from the wells and riverbanks they depended on. Clay allowed cities to grow. It lined the ovens for the first bakers of bread and formed the tablets where words first became etched. Emerging from clay-laden flood plains cities expanded and expanded.

For the Ancient High Priests of the Tigress and the Euphrates when it came to making their idols only the finest clay would do. This dirt was not dirt cheap. Finer clays used for religious ceremonies would cost you a pretty penny, often in the form of silver, gold and lapiz. These expenses weren’t paid to a merchant, they were instead paid directly into pits from where they were extracted. Seeing a priest chuck a handful of rare metals into a pit of slick, sticky mud would today seem insane but back then it seemed like a fair bargain. In return for glistening metals the Earth gave you a material like no other. The ultimate vessel, a material that can hold water and heat, as well as it can hold language and belief. The early templates for our metropolises emerged as clay forms that since have been refined and sculpted into the landscapes we know today.

When I think of reverence for clay, I think of the imagery from one stone tablet exhumed from an ancient Babylonian temple. This tablet shows King Ashurbanipal, holding a basket above his crown. Pointing towards the heavens this basket housed something more valuable than gold or lapiz, it housed the literally foundations for his Empire. Even a man once called the King of the World, had to pay tribute to the divine material that is clay. For without clay how could breadmakers feed the masses, scribes write their epics, priests make their idols or potters make their pots. How could a King like Ashurbanipal rule with an iron fist without his Empire of dirt?

Simple answer, he couldn’t. 

A blue that pops

This test tile pictured here is nothing special. No pigments, no wild fluxes; just feldspars and silicates. Why then, with the most basic of materials, with the complete lack of colorants, we find a blush of blue? 

Within the animal kingdom blue is a rarity. Even the bluest of blue whales is still technically grey. To be blue is to stand out of the pack. Only one animal species produces a “true” blue pigment; the rest, they have to come up with other means. 

Morhpo didius has a blue that sings. A blue that tickles the cones of your eyes finer than any gold jewelry. A colour made afresh from each new angle. This neotropical butterfly seeks to clothes itself in the very finest of ultramarines. Each angle of this butterfly's wings cuts through with new unique hues. It is a display that glimmers with a vibrancy that we can't help but envy. It is here we will find the answer to our bubbles of blue glaze. 

Zoomed  in we no longer see the wing as a homogeneous plane but a tiled tessellation of tiny scales. Like minute crinkle-cut chips stacked against each-other, each scale is covered with microscopic ribbed plates. 

The wavelength of blue light has an interval of 450-495 nanometers. Morpho Didius' layers are spaced between these exact dimensions. When light rays hit the wing the rays bounce around in the corrugated valleys only to be shone back at us with a new blue look. The size of these voids dictates the hue like the length of a piano wire dictates the note. 

A colloid is a medium filled with a finely suspended materials. In the case
of this glaze it is a colloid filled with finely dispersed bubbles of gas. Sulfates, fluorides, chlorides and carbonates love to froth at high temperatures. If the glaze is thick enough at the right heat, it will capture and store these globules of gas. Looking at these blue blooms of glaze I know there are microscopic bubbles too small for me to see individually, but just the right size for me to see a blue iridescent glow. These bubble's dimensions directly correspond to the size of Morhpo didius' scales and thus produce the same effect. Iridescent blues will always be my favourite; Empty voids the exact right size for light to bounce back with a blue pop. 

The feathers of a peacock and the shine of an oil spill will always draw me in. Iridescents are so intriguing, they make you want to view every angle, see each new vibration of colour, appreciate each new shade of blue. In these petrified bubbles there is a void for light to dance at the right tempo. They show you how beautiful an empty space can be. The harmony of electromagnetic frequencies and echoes of empty space is what draws me into the void, that empty space constantly being filled with a blue aura. 

Idols

“You Shall Not Make for Yourself an Idol” (Exodus 20:4)

Worship your figures, worship your forms. Give them life with each veneration. It's the dedication to dwell on your own finger's creations that make a good piece of art great. Have faith in the clay, its ripples of silica, it's blocks of alumina.  It's good for the art and for you. Praise be to the clay and its maker. 

 I remember sitting there in those pews, my legs too short so as to wave above the carpet. I remember hearing the shall nots and the shall musts; Overviewing all of us, that oh so graven image. A man I never knew, from a place id never been, bleeding and dying like I could never know. It's what the eyes turned to naturally. A body so weak and a scene so violent it either added to images of torment or distracted from the scenes of miracles. That figure sticks to my mind like wet cardboard dipped in honey. 

I don't consider myself religious but seeing that figure at that Newport Chapel tickles a part of my brain nothing else can. A sculpture is never a solid form amassed of brass or marble but an empty vessel filled with our emotions and feelings. Images only speak 1000 words because we read into them so much. 

The bible forbids Idol worship because it knows we will do it, the impulse too strong, the reaction all too human. I've given into my natural impulses. The images I praise now are of my own making. I writhe in my own artistic ego like a pig writhing in it's own filth, gloriously. I venerate each mound of clay like its the Mother Mary. 

Hey wait a second! Its catholic guilt calling... he says he's with Moses, he's got some commandments he wants you to have a look at.

 You know what?! Fuck you Moses! I'm going to fuck the neighbors wife and steal his OX! I'm going to work on Sundays for double pay,  and every time I return to that blob of clay I'm going to make something I idolize.

“Their land is also full of idols; they worship work of their own hands,that which their own fingers have made”

Isaiah 2.8

Quenched

  “ when the rain washes you clean, you will know” 

-Fleetwood Mac.

There is nothing like getting soaked in torrents of a storms to put the mind at ease. I've always loved a good storm.  A child of the coast its been those grey water swells that have drawn me in. I often hear the question; are you a mountain person or a beach person? My only response is what type of beach are we talking about? Fine sandy shoals with warm turquoise waters? I'd rather not, some things are nice but fewer things are glorious. A stormy tide, that's glorious. Sitting in front of a passing squall you can hear the waves, you can smell the salt, you can feel the unique power that only the ocean offers. Some people need silence to sleep. Some people need silence to mediate. I need the roar of a fan to sleep and the chaos of a storm to mediate. When I sit in the perfect temperature bath I can feel the barrier between my skin and the water disappear. Their properties are so similar they feel one of the same. When I sit in the perfect storm I feel the white noise of  my mind getting lost in the swarm of fleeting droplets. I can feel my mind disappearing into the overflowing drains. The screams of the Poseidon's anger that's where the peace and quiet is.  

Maybe it's no surprise that nirvana means to quench the flame. For it's these flames of desires, furnaces of thought and embers of unease that can only be washed out by the heaviest of rains. It may not be everyone's sentiment but for me it's here where you can lose yourself at sea while finding yourself at home.

Crybaby

 

Why do we cry? We have many reasons to cry and many reasons as to why we cry. It is the latter I'm interested in. Animals can wash out a dusty eye, but to shed tears over emotions, that is uniquely a human activity. Homo Sapiens are willing to cry over spilt milk while an animal will only cry if we spill the milk into their eyes. Among all sentient beings, our special relationship with tears is distinctive and noteworthy.  

 

We cry when our Meibomian gland is woken up and sent into overdrive. Normally we produce half a teaspoon of teardrops a day, but in the time it takes to finish The Notebook we could have produced up to half a cup!

 

That's how we cry, but why do we cry? For some it's despair, for some it's being overjoyed, while for a limited few its being hungry. Those who suffer from “Crocodile Tear Syndrome” experience the perplexing situation of shedding a tear every-time they get peckish. This often occurs from a facial injury in which nerves are severed and damaged. Mistakes are made while the body attempts to repair the carnage. In the process wires are crossed, leaving a nerve transmission line linking the saliva glands to the Meibomian glands. It's as if someone wired your oven-stove to your bathroom faucet. Every time their hunger fires up, their eyes over-flow like the kitchen sink. Curious indeed, but this information only answers why do some cry, Why do WE cry?

 

Let's talk to the experts! Babies are the Professors of the crying world. To be a cry baby is to be an A-tier athlete on the tear production team. Babies cry a lot; they scream, they wheeze, all while calling for attention. Oils are among the 160 molecules found in tears, without these drops of moisture some scientists posture that a baby could steer into harm's way. A dried out nose and throat is an irritant for us but for the feeble, it's dangerous. Having the tears come along with the hours of screaming may protect a baby from un-wished ills.

 

Examining tears as merely a way to keep the repository channels lubed up ignores the important roles tears play in our society. If we are to answer this question (as to why we cry?) we need to dive deeper!

Crying is an external display of an internal emotion. It is described as an honest single. For emmy-award lacking plebeians, tears are something that can't really be faked. Anthropologists have argued that this honest expression can add authenticity to a relationship. A symbol between an individual and a group that their emotions are raw, bare and real.  Blurry crying eyes leaves one emotionally and physically vulnerable. Like bowing or opening arms for a hug, tears show the group that the individual is comfortable around them. Crying helped to bring communities together, securing their survival against a hostile outside. These acts would help to ingrain crying from a communal code to the genetic code.  

 

Account of William Howe defending his client ( Edward Unger) 1887, NYC

“The trial had left Unger with not so much his foot on the scaffold as his neck in the noose. He had admitted his hatred of the victim, one August Bohle. He acknowledged battering him with a hammer, dismembering his body, and sending his limbs and trunk in a box to Baltimore. He also accepted that he had taken Bohle’s head to Brooklyn and dropped it off an East River paddleboat. It was hard to identify any doubt, let alone a reasonable one, from the evidence. But as the handkerchief hit Howe’s forehead and his eyes began to shine, an argument, if not quite a defense, swirled out of the maelstrom. Unger had three children, including two daughters who had been clinging to him throughout the trial, and — although Howe begged the jurors not to let that sight cloud their judgment — it was to their tragedy that he turned. For Edward Unger’s only crime, he insisted, had been to spare the little ones the sight of death. He was no guiltier than the girl being dandled on his knee. “It was his son that cut up his body,” he sobbed. “It was that beautiful child that used the saw: it was the elder sister that throw [sic] the head in the river.” Reminding the jurors that there were no eyewitnesses to the killing, he pleaded with them not to make up that deficiency with logic. “Did you leave your homes to hang a man upon inference or your reasoning?” he demanded. “God forbid.” The point was, in every sense, a rhetorical one. Unger was found not guilty of murder. “

The Trial: A History, from Socrates to O. J. Simpson  

  Sadakat Kadri  

Maybe it was Howe's tears that got his client off scot-free. As he dabbed his eyes, his tears jumped from the handkerchief into the minds of the jurors. This honest signal proved that this lawyer believed in his client and so should they! Whether it was the tears or not that clinched the not-guilty verdict the prosecutor, Francis L Wellman would always lament he could smell Howe's onion soaked handkerchief.

 

Tears are a lot of things, protective lubricant for our eyes and airways, external expressions of internal thoughts, but most of all tears are signifiers of humanity. Language isn't unique to humans, neither is tool making, but crying not to wash the dirt from our eyes but the emotions from our souls, that is something that is uniquely us. 

The New New

What a mindfuck. A glass and half full of bullshit. The new new; A chaotic set of alterations, lacking every bit of moderation. 2020 has steamed rolled in like the flying Scotsman only to become a train-wreck littered with dazed and sickly passengers. Devoting our senses to the news we can't help but rubberneck at this unfolding tragedy.

It's been a rude awakening coming into the new decade. We were stirred up at the early hours of 2020 by blaring alarm bells warning us of a new disease. Kicked into the cold shower of reality we are only just starting to get a grip on things. New activities, new interactions, new information. Non-stop new news everyday; Don't forget to catch-up!

Switching on the telly at midday has become the new ritual for Victorians. Each day we wait for the empty podium to be filled and the cases read aloud. In front of that artificial purple background we listen anxiously for the numbers to be called out. Jeez, tatts-lotto in 2020 is not like how it used to be.

Glue yourself to that glass box. Press your ears to the speakers so you can be confused a little clearer. What zone? What stage? What permits do I need to run a shop? What needs permit me to run to the shops? Is drinking alone no longer sad, but an appropriate measure? All will be answered by the 24 hours new cyclone.

Wake up, digest the reports. Keep up on your notifications by keeping up your morbid curiosity. Hook up your IV to mainfeed and report comments on the coroner's report. Watch the news, embrace it like a pillar of molten copper, squeeze it tight while it burns your flesh. Brace yourself for each new day of news. Embrace the new new.

Productive Avoidance

I'm doing some productive avoidance. Some spring cleaning while the deadline counts down. A little writing while the clock ticks, a distraction or two while I should be knowing better. There is nothing like the unrelenting power of avoidance to motivate.  

I made this sculpture a couple weeks ago. Since then I have re-wedged the form back into an anonymous wad of clay, and since then I had struggled to write anything of meaning on this piece. I've stared bug-eyed, fist on cheek looking at this void of meaning, for answers. Nothing came, no meaning, no stories, no words, just the smug expression of a surreal form with its head resting on it's fist. No write-ups could survive pasts their infancy. All ideas succumbed to draft mortality.  

This piece of clay is an experimentation of texture and techniques, while this piece of writing is an occasion of avoidance and procrastination. I should be writing two important documents right now, one due tonight, the other tomorrow. What better way to procrastinate than write about the thing I've been avoiding to write about for weeks? Fuck, I'm good. My mental gymnastics could  put any circus out of business. Don't judge me for writing this, I'm just being productive.

Igneous

 

To ignite is to birth fire, to be igneous is to be birthed from fire. This journey starts with burning caverns and finishes with my burnished pot. The magma rich center of our Earth is a non-stop, nuclear-powered factory. Fueled by radioactive uranium and potassium it's been reliably running 24/7 for 4.5 billion years. This volcanic enterprise burns, churns and creates the minerals we call igneous. This molten Earth doesn't just flow, it rushes violently and devours into unshielded rock. To call these forces colossal would be an understatement. This raw unaltered power is something rarely experienced. A thin veneer of insulating crust is what protects us from the bone melting heat. And when I say bone melting I mean it! Underneath those 30km of packed rock and with 2000 degrees to spare, it's hot enough to turn the firmest of femurs to the most molten of soups. My grandfather used to describe vivid memories of getting close to Earth's engine rooms. In Carletonville, a town an hour drive from Johannesburg, he crammed into a cage that would transport him and the men he was with to the underworld. It only took 10 minutes but by then they were sitting in the deepest mine shaft in the world. 10,000 feet underneath insulating rock the temperature was unbearable. Refrigerators were hauled into these boiler like rooms, yet the narrow passages would keep the air hotter than any day in the Sahara. Work had to be halted so that the miners could upturn their rubber boots overflowing with sweat, it was as close to hell as you could ever get. It was at the depths that these human's truly understood the power of the geothermal engines below our feet. Engines that rip apart the bonds of the hardiest of stones and like alchemy, birth compounds completely anew. Engines that pulse with a power of such magnitude that us mere mortals struggle to grasp it. The engines of Earth's inferno deserve our praise but most of all deserve our respect. “Volcanoes are special because as we take delight in their strange beauty, there must always be an undercurrent of fear” -Professor Aubrey Manning From hundred of kilometers below my feet to the surface of my pot, how did these polished iron bleps get here? If the cores and mantles are the production factory, then volcanoes are the logistics department. With global reach and a long track record, volcanoes provide us with a rich assortment of minerals manufactured from deep below. The trachyte in this work comes from one of the most epic delivery systems ever appreciated. A 2000 km stretch of volcanoes from central Queensland to the northwest tip of Tasmania, it is the world's longest continental volcanic chain. Thirty three million years ago a hot plume busted through a weak crust and began regurgitating its igneous insides. As the world's continents slowly shifted, so too did the plume. From its beginnings up north it traveled southwards, eventually ending where it is today resting calmly in the bass strait. Each time the lava chain extended the chemical composition of its contents changed. Over the hills of New South Wales the plumed welled contents from deep within the Earth. A unique combination of alkali feldspar in the form of trachyte is what came in the delivery. Iron rich and with not too much silica the lava oozed with the consistency of warm honey. There on the heights of a prehistoric continent this unique gift cooled and clarified into hard lakes of glaze. I love igneous rock; They are both a unique tool in ceramics as much they are a unique story in geology. Isolated collections of rocks that reveal stories of climaxing volcanic plumes and lactating magma caverns. A strange beauty with an undercurrent of fear, a strange mineral formed in underground currents of fire. That's what sparks the fire for my love of igneous rocks, that strange beauty.

Hiding faces in plain sight

I started by sculpting faces. Faces have always been safe bedrock for me. Retreating into familiar settings I've ended up making dozens of clay busts. I love how hands can contort into scenes of action. I admire how flesh sculpted tense, can show a full body in movement. But there is something about faces, the windows of the soul, they have always draw me back in.

Humans, we are built to see and interpret faces. Our brains churn through huge amounts of raw data every time we interact with another person. The crease of a smile, the wrinkle of wincing eyes, we process these subtle physical adjustments into personal, deep emotions.  The innate sense to see a face and process meaning with such accuracy, is an ability I find astonishing. We read faces and faces say a lot. Maybe this is why we see them everywhere, in our art, in our clouds or in the moon's rocks, we see our expressions.

To experience pareidolia is to misinterpret sensory data to perceive a figure/form. Once thought to be a calling card for psychosis we now understand this behavior is a main stay of human nature.

The human brain is a black box of awe inspiring reactions. Understanding how this folded, wet muscle can operate at such a high level requires us to examines the folds of beings whose brain cannot operate at such a high level. Patient CK is the anonymous pseudonym given to a man whom had suffered a traumatic brain injury. Blunt force trauma from a motor-vehicle had altered his mind to where he could no longer recognize objects. His eyes could see them, but his brain could not process them. To CK the leg of a human was as mysterious as the legs of chair, things seen but not understood. In the processing factory of CK's brain there was one production line left in fully intact. CK could see faces. Not only see, but recognize, understand and relate. A man whom didn't know a cup of tea when it smack bang right in-front of his nose could see and understand a smug expression. When shown the uncanny paintings Giuseppe Arcimboldo, a painter whom loved to could construct human portraits out fruits and vegetables. CK could see a face, yet no fruit, he could see eyes and noses but not carrots and apples. Missing the forest for the trees, CK missed the fennel for the face.

Loaded into an MRI his brain sparkled whenever he was shown portraits. The fusiform gyrus a long segment stretching the undercarriage of the brain pulsed with energy. Our gyrus lights up too! We share the same lobes and abilities used to recognize faces that CK had.

Our skull is a highly competitive real-estate market. Grey and white matter has been pushed into high-density housing.  Sculpted and refined through evolutionary processes our brains have reluctantly given out zoning permits to only services deemed essential.  Alongside whether are fleeing or fighting, horny or hungry, the brain dedicates valuable space for us to recognize a friendly face.

Faces will always have a special place for me, both in my art and my temporal lobe.

Third Firing: Happy accidents

"We don't make mistakes -- we just have happy accidents."

Bob Ross


Here is it three firings, one pot. Bisque firing readies the form for glaze, while the stoneware firing readies the pot for its premier. Third firings are usually kept for specialties, gold lustres or printed decals, these firings show off fine skills and finer materials. My third firings though, my third firings are for fuck ups.


I remember throwing this pot. A large mountain of clay stood on my wheel, I had been yanking small cups off it all morning. I was getting to the end and the chawans were getting monotonous. Screw making a another tea set, lets make something big. I took that mass of clay and wrestled it into a form that I felt justified firing. A nice rounded, chubby pot. I scratched the slip with delicate, flowing patterns. From its dried state I sent the pot on its one way journey towards vitrification. With the pot freshly bisqued and its quartz inverted it was ready for glaze. I had a fine, respectable surface decoration, but how best to show it off?


This process took place during my start of third year Bachelors, I needed to experiment with multiple materials to get cool effects and good marks. Onto my pot I added a slop of cobalt carbonate, silicon carbide, and potash feldspar. Wiped away as to just cling to clay ridges the vessel I prayed that these little troughs of colour and texture would show of the pot's delicate form. Into a milk-thick clear glaze, I quickly dunked my vessel. Loaded into the kiln I dreamt of flowing patterns of a blue and reduced glaze. A perfect harmony between the clay and the glaze; this was never meant to be.

Silicon carbide holds onto its form until 1000 degrees Celsius, from here it suffers a violent onslaught from the properties of molten glaze. Pried apart by the liquid glass the compound releases a cloud of carbon monoxide. These clouds have often been used to the reproduce the effects of a gas kiln within a electric one.

Every pot taken from a glaze firing is an archive of chemical reactions, in my case ugly chemical reactions. The unfused silica in the potash feldspar and silicon carbide had clouded the otherwise clear glaze. Sure enough the silicon carbide has given off its noxious gas. This atmosphere would not produce carbon trapped black spots, which I like, but instead littered the pot with pinholes. These holes blemished my pot like acne scars. The finish was a mess. The delicate scratches I had made into the clay were gone forever, hidden beneath a thick shield of white glaze. I really didn't like it. It looked dirty, untidy. The blue didn't match the form. There remained a really unclear boundary between the interior and the exterior. From the finish to the texture everything looked muffled. Not subtle, muffled. Ah dang I thought. This pot is a symbol of my hubris. A prime example of why one should experiment with test tiles not full forms.

There's a funny thing with not caring about a pot anymore. It's liberating knowing your are free to try out new things without fear of making things worse. Ah fuck it, why not firing again. Chuck in back into the inferno. I reached into a bucket at the side of my desk, a white shino thick with a cellulose gum, and slapped the glaze onto the freshly fired pot. I didn't have time to care about using brushes, my hands will do. Running my fingers around the pot I reintroduced flowing grooves not in the clay but in the glaze. BACK YOU GO BUDDY. Into the kiln the pot was rudely fired for a third and final time.

From my most despised thrown piece to my favorite, I love this pot not just for its finish but for its story. It's the ugly duckling turned into the beautiful swan. I love how the shino floats atop a blue cobalt sea. I love how the glaze cracks under surface-tension. I love how the skin is smooth no longer blistered. Finally some balance between the form and surface.

The most fertile soil is that scorched by a destructive fire. A forest fire frees chemicals locked in place, allowing them to be absorbed and transformed into new ever more astonishing forms. A kiln firing frees the chemicals locked in a glaze, allowing them to be absorbed and transformed to smother an ever more beautiful form.








Special thanks to Janelle Low who took these stunning photographs


@janellelow_

http://www.janellelow.com/

Shino Thoughts

Hey yall. I got my website up! It's actually been up for 2 months but I think it's fair to say we've been through a couple of crazy months and things have fallen by the wayside. The IP to my ego can be found at link in my bio description. I'm still going to be posting to both my blog and my website so ya can enjoy both.


I have to thank the talented Janelle Low for these pics. This pot was one of my favourite little surprises from last year. Like petrified lava, this glaze appears to be in it's viscous state while being locked in strict silica chains. Oxidized shino, damn you can be pretty. I love shinos, a good gloss with a honey like melt state. Some glazes run like sled dogs, Shino doesn't run, it oozes. High temperature refractories like aluminum oxide gives it it's thickness while unfused silica give it it's opacity. I love that little window where the glaze has pulled back onto itself. The tension giving us some bare skin we can ogle at.


I've heard many potters say it's not really a shino if it's not in reduction. I do think there's a point to that. That orange blushing the glaze smiles with. The black carbon trapped spot's that blister a form. These are all qualities that come best from the lick of the flame. Shino loves reduction, this glaze shows off the drama of a burning kiln. The two were made to be together. Shino loves reduction, but right now I love this pot. Reduction or not shino has always got something to give, something to showoff . Shino glows like drying amber yet feels like polished marble. Shino you pretty.




Have a sus of Janelle's photography, is legit

@janellelow_

http://www.janellelow.com/

Clay Sketch #4 | Soaking in

Soaking in


There's something calming about being submerged. It holds, it hugs, water, it consumes us. Entering a body of the liquid feels like your form is entering into a new state of being. In water we can feel ourselves becoming totally embedded to the environment we preside in. When we bathe our pores slowly open to swell from it's surroundings. We absorb the water, while we are absorbed into the water.

The Gilf Kebir is a sandstone plateau tucked into the southwest corner of Egypt. In this expansive landscape of drifting sands, dry dirt and soaring temperatures we find the cave of swimmer. Etched onto the archaic walls we see six human figures taking a dip. This ancient art is our first evidence for human's love of plunging into the deep. Approximately 420 million years ago, our common ancestor left its liquid home for greener pastures and for at least 9000 we've been trying to jump back in.

The love to flood ourselves with water is a love that is universal. Every culture has adopted specific meanings and practices when it comes to water. For the catholic faith water has a cleansing property. The purifying powers water has during baptism is the same water has during the purging floods of the first testament. It washes away the foul allowing us to start anew. Zen Buddhism sees flowing water as the impermanence of all things, while still water symbioses meditative insights. Water is universal in geographical prevalence but unique in cultural interpretation.



I've been finding myself in baths more. Its a nice way for the muscles to soak up magnesium and a nice way for the brain to soak up some stillness. It's nice to join the deluge once in a while. Brining oneself in warm, salty water always feels nice.

When a foreigner quizzed the Roman Emperor why he took the trouble to bathe once a day he replied "Because I do not have the time to bathe twice a day". There aren't many things in life I can relate to a Roman Emperor but that statement is one of them.

Clay Sketch #3 | Not mixing

Keep it quick

I love unblended clays. Like freshwater pouring into seawater, a dirty iron clay encountering a pure white clay will produce a swirling storm of activity. Red infecting the purest china clays and the purest whites mellowing the heaviest iron oxides. I could sit there wedging, making lovely spirals, removing air pockets and inconsistency. There, I could have a uniform blob of clay. But where is the fun in that? This ain't wheel throwing, this is some rushed form I'm slapping together ,alone, in my studio, dancing in my undies. It doesn't have to be perfect. My clay sketches aren't for kilns or public consumption they are for personal development. Processes where the longed result isn't a finished piece but a learned technique. I don't think practice makes perfect but I do think practice makes things experimental.

I like messy forms. Crumbling dry sheaths of silica doused in rich-red stained porcelains, my reclaim bucket is complicated. A 70L tub filled with dozens of clay varieties, clays waiting patiently to be turned into a fired form. I've worked in throwing studios. I know a paint mixer is the best tool for speeding up reclaim. A quick blitz of a the power-tool will turn the recycled clay into a smooth, beautiful slip. A consistent product reacts consistently. When I throw I crave a consistent clay, but when I sculpt I revile a uniform product. I like chucking various clays together, different particle size, different colours, get them on! I work quick with my hands. Keep the movement. The clay has worked hard to be active, don't fuck it up. This piece took 10 minutes not because I wanted to be quick, but because I needed to be quick. Catch that activity while you can. Wedging clay is like mixing paints on pallet. I prefer to mix on the canvas.

Blue: Cobalt's Price

Cobalt is the hardiest, most giving of the colorants we dare to mix into our glazes. With 1400 degrees of stability, cobalt oxide gives the richest blues with the most minimal input. A impurity of one percent will turn the clearest translucent glazes, into a stormiest oceans of blues. Cobalt got the goods.


Mined from our planets crust, cobalt is a vital part of humans existence. Wedged into the heart of b12 compounds, cobalt keeps our heart pumping and our blood flowing. Cobalt is a tenacious little beast. The 27th element can't exist as a pure metal, the oxygen atmosphere of our planet dictates that. This mineral is always linking into greater ever more complicated forms. Cobalt's origin is as varied as its minerals are. From copper sedimentary rocks, to iron laced meteorites, cobalt is always hitchhiking a ride with other elements. With each paring arises a new relationship, a new colour, a new pigment. Calcite cobalt crystals glow rose-pink, while extraterrestrial metals shines with a yellow-hued steel. My favorite marriage though is with silica. The part one of clay's two part recipe, silica loves cobalt. Fired to a fiery 800 degrees Celsius cobalt dumps oxygen choosing instead to move in with silica. In this apartment of violent chemistry, cobalt and silica together glow with a blue aura. It is a mistake to see cobalt individually as blue; but correct to recognize the relationships it forms as blue. If you see a cobalt blue, you know are looking at a ionic bond formed in a hot mess of at least 800 degrees. Cobalt manages to combine with other elements, producing something more valuable the sum of it's parts.

“According to general belief the Kobolds belong as much to the race of men as the world of spirits, they retain the size and shape of infants, and that knife which so often is noticed form of the caudal appendage, is nothing less than that the instrument with which they have been put to death. 

There exists, however, quite a number of troublesome hobgoblins, who turn the house upside down and deprive the people whom they bear a grudge of peace and sleep, till they well nigh drive them mad” 

Myths of the Rhine 

1874 

X. B. Saintine 

Schneeberg, the tallest mountain range in lower Austria. As you march east it is the last great momentum of Europe's alps. The hills eventually easing off as you arrive at the fruitful plains of the Danube river, the rock still remains in sight. A three sided beast of eroded limestone. This is where miners spoke in hush tones of the demon of the mountain. Inside the caverns that a blue mineral lay men's skin grew thick with blackened tumors. Among this, they say, the demon lay. A demon that damned an empty mouth with taste of metal. A demon that left men blind when the moon rose. A demon who ate at men's insides leaving their feces red with blood. This is Kobold, the ethereal creature of German folklore. A shape-shifter by nature this creature, lived in rocks while we live in air. They tempted mortals with rich veins of gold and silver that when smelted turned into poisonous fumes. They liked to toy maliciously with us. Many humble miners made offerings in hopes the demon would stop. The demon did not stop. Seeing the gifts as encouragement the creature crumbled earth onto mortals whom dared to enter it's cavern. It was in the rocks where the Kobold lived, that the men who mined, died. From these ages the metal, Cobalt was named and forever burdened with a demeanor of the sinister and the occult.




Cobalt isn't just a blue giving mineral, but an energy gifting one too. Cobalt is in high demand today, not for it's decorative qualities but for the power it supplies. Densely packed into a lithium battery cobalt gives your iPhone an extra burst of energy, lasting longer and delivering more. The miner's of this precious mineral are no longer Austrian but Norwegian, Canadian and Congolese. The worlds largest supply lay in the South East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In a province once called Katanga, rich sedimentary rock formations supply the DRC with what the world desires. This region has been coveted and fought over for centuries. The power that resisted King Leopold and assassinated Patrice Lumumba, grew from these mines. From the uprisings for an autonomous state to the crushing repression of a unified government these buried treasures have added diesel to burning conflicts. In the courts too battles ensues. Apple and other tech giants find themselves under fire for the use of child labor in order to keep the batteries flowing. Cobalt can befoul even the cleanest of suits; It's allure so enchanting, we will make deals with the demons in the rocks in order to obtain it.




It was never Cobalt that made those Austrian miners sick. It was the impurities arsenic and nickel. Smelted these elements welled into a noxious smoke that poisoned the stricken workers. But alas as the rock was blue, we linked the curses of goblins to the 27th element. That's the thing about cobalt though, its qualities lay in it's relations. Cobalt's links with silica still gives us blue. Cobalt's links with wealth still give us conflict.

Kobold oh you contemptuous heathen why you must still play these malicious games with us?

                     



This is a series all about blue. What is it and why we love it? The images accompanying the text are microscopic shots, taken of my glaze tests. I've found this perspective really helps me to focus in and investigate the material, revealing new details I've never seen. Hopefully by understanding blue a little better, we can understand our own pale, blue dot a little better.

Blue: Cobalt Beauty

This is a series all about blue. What is it and why we love it? The images accompanying the text are microscopic shots, taken of my glaze tests. I've found this perspective really helps me to focus in and investigate the material, revealing new details I've never seen. Hopefully by understanding blue a little better, we can understand our own pale, blue dot a little better.

“She found Helen in her room,

weaving a large cloth, a double purple cloak,

creating pictures of the many battle scenes

between horse-taming Trojans and bronze-clad Achaeans,

wars they suffered for her sake “

The Illiad

Homer

Blue. The colour of the rich, the heavenly, the unclouded. Blue, one of the three primary colours in the holy trinity, we call visible light. Blue is the most detached and least material of all the hues. Its link to the limitless, unreachable sky connects it to the divine. The cults of the Virgin Mary fetishsized her purity by displaying her in sky-blue robes. Vishnu, the maintaining force of the universe is wrapped in a blue skin, his infinite power linked the ever-reaching sky he protects. Amun's, the Egyptian god of sun and air, blue complexion ties him to the heavenly skies he resides. Blue it special.

On the land it's rare, blue is so sparse that in many languages blues and greens have colexfied into one unanimous word. Arabic, Tibetan, Japanese are all lexicons that lack such specificity as too give blue it's own category. Persian though, Persian has 6-7 words of blue, this ancient language describes the glow of rain-clouds as turquoise stones and the rings of our eyes as lapiz rocks.

The silk road trade routes of the middle ages spread religion, disease and the love of blue. Persia became the worlds exporter of the finest cobalt. A metal mineral that when fired flashes into a rich deep hue. The Chinese branded this new pigment of choice as “Islamic blue”. For one pound of cobalt a Chinese trader would hand over three pounds of gold. Islamic blue and Chinese porcelain fused together to become the defining image we think of as “fine-china”. The purest clays of Jingdezhen paired with the most vibrant pigments of Persia. Only the greatest skilled, surgeon-like hands were trusted to decorate with this divine material. The blue, chemical flare wrapped each translucent, white vessel; a pairing so vibrant it demanded your attention. In this golden age of ceramics every pot burned with glorified beauty.


For centuries China honed their expertise in design and practice, their ceramics eventually becoming the desire of the worlds elites. Hungry consumer base grew, swelling the corporations that could help get their fix. Fueled by greed and a unrelenting appetite these companies gorged themselves on China's finest ceramics. Being left with a hefty tab, the Europeans payed the bill with deadly opiates. Drowning in a sea of addiction China tried to go cold turkey on it's smack addiction, banning the trade of poppies. But, like a abusive drug dealer, the British replied with violence and blackmail forcing their client to keep their addiction. Bullied and bruised China had to accept it's fate when looking down the barrels of a flotilla of British warships. China was never the same after the opium wars. It's ports and national borders were violated and wedged open for the world. China has lost its agency and England had secure it's commodities. The sleeping tiger Napoleon had warned about, just had it's legs amputate, its claws removed, its body taxidermied and carcass sold to the highest bidder.

China saw the beauty of blue. They honed their craft and their artistry producing an aesthetic that people didn't know they wanted, but then needed. The trade bloated the treasuries of Emperors and investment firms. The world clawed to get the newest, the finest, the most ostentatious fine-china they could exhibit. Blue was in fashion in Europe now, a trend that drove styles and market forces. China produced a beauty and quality that no-one could truly replicate. But with such beauty came lust and jealously. The British squirmed with anger, coveting their far-neighbors treasures. With a fleet spewing gunpowder and violence they took what they saw as theirs. This story of trade started on the backs of silk road camels and ended on the Cannons of British Gunboats.


Helen of Troy's beauty is said to have launched 1000 ships. How many ships I wonder have launched for the blue, beauty of Chinese Porcelain?

Infected

If a tree fall's in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

By the law's of physics, yes; By the doctrines of art, no. Observation makes art. Humanity's ability to declare the object, the act, as something special is what makes us artists. If the act of perceiving something as art makes it art, then the context the surrounding the viewer dictates the meaning. A broken marriage, a passed love one or a global pandemic all change how we hear the tree falling. Context dictates perception and perception dictates meaning.

This work started as a experiment in materialism. Showing off the material as a vessel itself, I took chunky, thick slabs of terracotta and loosely bound them into a form. The porous sponge like walls became a carrier for protozoic organisms. Together they bloomed and blemished my work with green algae, brown molds and invisible bacteria. No longer is this an experiment in materials but a carrier for terracotta-based pathogens. I have to view it like that. Living organisms slowly devour this unfused piece of quartz in a weak bath of oxalic acid. This work, no longer a pot but an infected specimen, context dictates it.

It's weird living in a pandemic. Brief moments of normalcy are punctuated by unsettling instances of our brave new world. The burning smell of chlorine cleaners, the parched sight of alcohol dried hands and the muffled sound of masked breathing whiplash me back into this global event.

Six foot areas of social distancing, un-trusting eyes of strangers, its the small things that get to me.

Things I can't unsee.

Updates I cant ignore

Artworks I can't re-imagine.

Meaning I can't find.

Context I can't dictate.

An event I'm struggling to grip and a paragraph I struggling to end. I needed to write this, I know it's not positive, it's what on my mind. This post is not succinct, nor with a clear message, it's clouded and confused. This has little to do with a terracotta pot, it's a lot to do with me and you. This post is an acknowledgment to the elephant in the room, it may not be what's needed, but context dictates it.

Boneyard

Documenting flora| 3| 03/02/2020


I love the story this landscape tells. A scene of death, destruction and rebirth; this is the story of nine months in this pot. In the center of this vessel we see the archaic ruins of once great Black Nightshade. This shrub had coaxed itself rather quickly into the undertadultlerted soil. Tunneling it's roots further and further the plant dervoured the nutrient dense feast. Soon the black stem grew and it would sport shiny, black berries bursting with a poisonous, glycoalkaloids syrup. Small grasses thrived around the foot of the growing behemoth. Bigger plant's tried to outgrow the nightshade, but would find themselves strangled by the plant's tyrannical roots. The black stemmed monster found itself all-powerful, too poisonous to be touched by mammals or birds and too big to to allow neighbours to compete, this Nightsahde owned this pot. But alas it would be the plant's own success that would be it's downfall. The beast outgrew it surroundings and like a big fish in too small of a pond it starved to death. Slowly rotting, it sagged towards the Earth. It was here, when a summer's heat engulfed the pot. Four days of fourty degrees sucked the vessel of life's fluid. The scene lay as dead as a desert, the once great Nightshade becoming no more than two tortured stems. The sun punished all flora whom dared to set foot in this pot. Nothing could survive, nothing could grow, nothing thrived in this vessel. No relief was in sight...

February would arrived. With February, comes the shortest month and the heaviest rains. A series of downpours that taunt you for thinking this is still summer. With the hail and precipitation, once dry soil came back to life. Micro-bacteria long dormant awoke, together they would gnaw at the rotting skeleton till only the hard cellulose shell was left. Into this boneyard, thistles, milkweeds and dandelions carved out their plots among the dead Nightshade. Using the energy of their deceased, distant cousins the weeds began bloom. The moss now wet, began to swell awakening its sleeping cells. From a barren landscape to a thriving metropolis in only thirty days. A mish-mash of undergrowth now live in the skeleton of a long dead shrub. Together they all compete for the glory to grow, to reproduce, to thrive.


It is the determination of weeds I find compelling. That raw brute strength is inspirational. Whether it is the smallest or cracks or the blandest of soil something will take root. Something will conquer only to overthrown by a more adaptable, sturdy organism. This scene for me isn't a pot infested with weeds but instead a vessel filled with survivors and opportunists. This is a pot that enchants me with its sight and with its story.

Old man yells at plant

Documenting flora| 2 | 03/02/2020




“You son of a gun, don't you think I can see you there? Festering, growing, you dare to live in MY pot? Haven't you read the council regulations, you're simply not allowed to exist.

That cocky attitude you got there is really something. Doing nothing but hogging space, you ought to ashamed of yourself! I toiled that soil. I loaded that nitrogen. I balanced that PH and YOU, you just waltzed in and made yourself at home! All I did was turn my head for five weeks and you had moved your fat ass in! WELL IM HERE TO TELL YOU TO MOVE YOUR FAT ASS OUT! Here's your thirty days notice pal, pack your bags, you are about to be uprooted from your surroundings!

Ooooo, but how I ought to get rid of you?! Chemical defoliants seem tempting. A noxious broth of glyphosate and agent orange should do the trick. I will bleach you to the Napsian wonderland you belong. Ughh, you weeds have always grossed me out. Your crawling vines, barbed leaves and rampageous nature have always given me grief. A sea of thistles, hurghhh, I can feel my stomach churn. A swamp of weed killers, mmmmmm, now that's a soothing scene.
You know Round Up is all natural, that's how you know it's good for you! HA, good for me but not so good for you dumbass!”

The plant ceases to laugh at the man's poor joke.

“Sonchus arvensis! That's what you like to call yourself!? You can fuck off with that latin bullshit, you aint nothing but a milk thistle. A good for nothing milk thistle! I can't wait to have you gone buddy, then maybe I can get some good plants in here, like wheat or cotton. You know, the non-invasive speicies type.
.....I'm starting to get tired of your sight mate. I will point my wretched finger of scorn upon you. I will revel in your destruction. I will rip you and each of your bretheren from MY soil. I will pursue you to ends of this here Earth bud!

I WILL NOT SLEEP TILL RIVERS OF CHLORINE PULSE THROUGH YOUR ROOTS!
I WILL SHOVEL A HOLE SO DEEP I DELIVER YOU TO HADES MYSELF!!
I WILL SCORCH THE EARTH BENEATH YOUR FEET, SO YOU MAY NEVER RETURN!!!

I WILL GET MY POT BACK!!!!

ooof

Phew...

um, sorry please excuse me, one's emotions can easily get heated when one's ego is threatened by a tiny plant.“

Weeds

Documenting flora| 1| 03/02/2020


Weeds, the outlaws of an ordered society. Outcast plants that ought not to be sowed into our pure soil. To be a weed is to be free from human control. We see weeds as leaches, parasites, plants that do not belong. Weeds have been defined as “a plant not appreciated for its beauty or it's use”. Well I'm here to tell you weeds, you are gorgeous! Screw the beauty standards. I'd take a sea of Black Nightshade over a sprawl of Daffodils any day. Why are we so intimidated by an independent plant? The luscious flowers of the South African Milkweed are surely as beautiful as the bulbs we see in the Bunnings isle.

It is it's willfulness to create it's own beauty that makes it a weed. They live their live so resourcefully that they don't need us. Weeds create they own glory, they don't ask for help, they simply get on with the job.


This project saw me dive headfirst into human's most domineering architectural forms, the strong monolithic shapes of brutalism. A brutalist building is a statement of humanities self importance. A monument to say I (A HUMAN) WAS HERE. Inspired by the shape of these concrete sarcophagi I made my own ceramic vessels. I thought it would be funny to take such a human driven form and populate it with the most wild, inhuman flora.

I filled these empty structures with a balanced mix of soil. Rock's and charcoal formed the foundations, allowing water to flow and filter. A mix of manure and soil formed the center, to provide a free buffet to the plants. Atop of this whole charade I placed a coat of sphagnum bryophyta. This thick wooly moss would hold the moisture, like a jumper holds warmth. This perfect concoction of earthly delights were left to sit. I placed the planter lacking plants, in the darkest corner of my Melbourne garden. For nine months both I and the vessels waited. These athropogenic shells quickly became homes to wilder forms. From planning to documentation this project was a fruitful twelve months. Even though I've already snapped the photos, this is merely just the beginning of this project. I can't wait to see the communities that these plants will mutate into in another twelve. It's fun being in the garden, not playing the hand of god but simply documenting as an observer.

On The Grog

BRT thoughts| 18/2/2020

Tug it, push it, smack it. This ain't porcelain baby this is that thick, rich, chunky BRT clay. This clay has got form. Thick rocky, shards of grog hold the contents of this clay vessel together. Grog is a collection of small, crushed peices of fired ceramics, together they take up the heavy lifting for the softer unfused clays. They provide the steel wiring to a setting concrete. Groggy clays are my favourite clays to work with. Even when throwing on the wheel I like to chuck these gritty rocks into my clay. Watch out though! Too much grog in the mix, the spinning clay will sandpaper your hands into bloody stumps. While this is a great exfoliation, doctors and hand models don't recommend the practice. If you get the balance of grog right though, you will be rewarded with a smooth, throwing clay that can still support it's weight with ease.


Grog, I love saying you out-loud, I love putting you in my clay. You allow me to get away with so much. Where a porcelain or a smooth terracotta may give up, seeing my form as too much ask, grog never gives up. It reduces cracking, it helps with thermal shock, it makes a surface sparkle with imperfections. Grog makes life easy and makes things beautiful. I can't make perfect work. I know people who can, porcelain throwers, terracotta coilers, manganese-clay burnishers, all these practitioners have a virtue for the perfect and the patience to achieve it, I have neither. Give me your foulest clay. Let my hands soak into the dirtiest layers of silica. Let my clay be tarnished with the roughest impurities. Give me your smoothest, flawless porcelain and ill fill it with my thick, grisly, granules of grog.


I love BRT. A buff raku clay with a hint of trachyte. Trachyte is a volcanic crystal formed on the surface of Earths crust. Trachyte is a great grog, not a high-fire clay but a high-fire glaze. Made chiefly of alkali feldspar's these crystal structures go from rock hard granules to smooth iron bleps at cone 10. In reduction BRT is a beauty, with no manganese, the darkness of BRT gives Feeney's chocolate™ a run for it's money. Trachyte is strewn all over the east coast of Australia. Formed in pools of silica rich lava the exposure to the cool air quenched these fiery lakes into fine crystals. I feel lucky to have access to such a gorgeous, contaminated material. With so many varieties and imperfections, it's impossible to give trachyte a simple chemical formula. Each rock, each pebble, each snippet of a prehistoric lava flow is a chaotic beauty that ought to be appreciated.

Trachyte; a wild collection of potassium feldspars. Trachyte; a glaze that sparkles like black suns. Trachyte; a grog not fired in a mortal's kiln but in the Earth's furnace. Trachyte you are my favourite grog.

Warrumbungles mountain range, Orana range NSW

Great location to source trachyte, formed by a volcano active between 13 to 17 million years ago

IMAGE 1
Photocredit @janellelow_ http://www.janellelow.com/

IMAGE 2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachyte#/media/File:The_Breadknife.jpg