Competition Time

I'm still working on the main, double module at Uni, "Studio Practice" - the glass bubble I posted a few weeks ago was an early part of that, the project has been about applying the same surface decoration and techniques to both ceramics and glass - this has taken the form of test tiles, and I have decided to stick with that as a theme.

I have been concentrating on the ceramics side of this for a couple of weeks as I am entering a competition. Here's a sneak preview of one of the tiles:

Click for larger image.

It doesn't show so well, but this has a real metallic look (and feel and sound) to it - that's probably because it contains manganese and copper.... It was a thick black sludge when it went in the kiln, and came out looking bronze like - alchemy!

I have probably made and fired around 200 tiles in different designs and surface treatments, some glazed, some in a standard electric kiln, and some in gas reduction (now that has produced interesting results!).

I have worked my "socks" off to get these done, and the reason for making so many is that I didn't have time to do testing before making the final pieces - I had to make multiples of everything so I could apply the different techniques and still have enough of each to assemble a piece of work. It is going to be wall art, I have been (attempting) to make frames too; woodwork probably isn't my strong point, and I now have much admiration for, and an appreciation of the prices charged by, a frame maker!

So, all this hard work was because the deadline was supposed to be Good Friday, but they e-mailed out this morning have extended it by a week -

Wooop woop I thought!! Closely followed by; actually I am not sure if that is a good or a bad thing. Because of the nature of how the tiles are made, they are not meant to be perfect, or uniform - they are, after all, tests. But a part of me now wants to re-make enough tiles, just a bit neater, because I have this extra week..... although it is, of course, the Easter break, my son is off school and I do actually have a mountain of other work to do (which has been neglected in favour of this competition).

When it is finally assembled, I will take a photo of the piece and you can keep your fingers crossed for me.

Oh, and I also have to supply description, for presentation. The work and/or the description has to demonstrate a clear link to the theme (which is innovations in healthcare and bioscience) - I might need that extra week to come up with that!