Well I failed at my attempt to write a blog post every week! I missed last week - oops... oh well!

It has been a very wet week here and our creek is once again flowing wildly after becoming almost completely dry. It is the only time in 20 years that we have seen it so empty - it's gotten really low before, but never that dry. Mother Nature always come through when you need it ...& just in time!
It did mean that we got stuck in our property for a day, but that's OK, it is great to have the waterhole so full again.

Spirit World

Cass has been busy creating pieces for her body of work for the end of year show. She is doing a project about identity - how identity is formed and how Artist's can explore these concepts in their work. 
So far in her studio investigations she has made a number of tall, slender figures with differing impressions and surface additives, embedded materials and textures. 
She is also experimenting with different clays to get varied effects. So far the clays used have been BRT, Special K and Raku T. They are still as yet unfired and they look really interesting and it will fascinating to see the fired results.

Branding 


The other exciting venture that Cass has been working on is the creation of branding irons, which will be cast in bronze. These relate to her identity project and she plans to make several of these so that she can brand both clay and wood - and anything else that takes her fancy!

Pictured right are some of the initial wax positives that are the first stage of the bronze process. This is a long process, but well worth the effort and I believe a really fabulous addition to her investigations into Identity.

Getting Plastered

I have been busy making moulds to slip-cast my little caravans. So far I have managed to make only 2 of them, with 2 more planned. (We had a few distractions last week and I wasn't able to get in to the studio on the days that I had planned.) 

They are three piece moulds so take a little bit of time to set up each step of the process - not my favourite part of making, but I do love the end results from mould making - the actual pouring and creation of repeated objects - I can't wait for that bit actually! I can't wait to see all the finished little vans all lined up together...
watch this space!

Back to the grind...

So this week we hope to get stuck back in to making...
...hopefully the rain will ease and we can get back in to the studio to continue our creative projects. We have so much going on this year that we really just have to keep at it.

Sunday Ceramics
Once again, if you are interested in ceramics, please make sure you check out what's happening in the other studios on the Sunday Ceramics site.


Until next week....
Keep the creativity flowing...

I have nothing to say... 
I am struggling finding anything to say today...
...not because our week was uneventful, it wasn't - I am just exhausted and don't really feel like writing, however, ....
...at the start of the year I decided to make the commitment of trying to write something here every week, so I will stick with it and write something ... but it might not be much :)

Mapping Our Region
Our work continues with the collecting country project and we have been busy mapping the region to identify key places, concentrating on significant places both in the natural, the man-made/monumental categories and places of importance to the Bundjalung People (showing the proper cultural respects, of course). We plan to use this formula in the other areas that we visit on our 'Trading Place' tour as well. This is a really interesting exersize and one worth doing for anyone really, especially the artists amongst us! Once we have made a map of these key places we intend to visit all of them (a lot of which we have already done, see previous posts) and take a sample imprint of anything that we find interesting to then make an artwork from. There are the obvious 'big ticket' places like Mt. Warning, Byron Bay Lighthouse, The Big Prawn and the like, but it's the secondary places that interest me the most, places like Tooloom Falls or Woolool Woolooni or Black Rocks... - maybe it's just the explorer in me! 
And on that note, if anyone from the Nth NSW region wants to share an important place with us please let us know.

Sunday Ceramics
I received my swap spoon in the mail from Kim Foale of Sunday Ceramics - Thanks Kim! Now I just need to glaze and refire to send her my swap in return. It's fun to swap and this concept of exchanging ware directly feeds into our Trading Place project, so I am really excited to have started some trades already!
 
Until next week... (maybe I will be re-energised by then)
...Keep the creativity flowing

Please Grant us the Serenity!
This week was another busy one at EFS and we had loads to do including submitting a grant application for our Trading Place project.
Pictured Left is an image of our concept - it is a merging of our Art practices, as you can see! We hope to make a travelling studio to facilitate our collecting of country and pieces of place related artworks for the Trading Place project and exhibitions.
It was stressful writing it up and getting all the figures right for the budget section (that's the bit I hate actually) and then getting it in on time. There was a last minute panic about some of the details, but it was submitted ... now all we have to do is wait....
... cross your fingers for us!

Gone Mouldy
I have decided to make some moulds from a couple of the cardboard caravans that I made last year so that I can make ceramic vans from them. So this week I was busy preparing them for the mould making process. As the cardboard would've disintegrated when the plaster is poured around it, I had to address this first. I decided to coat them in wax as a protective coating, plus as they were not perfectly symetrical I could add bits of modelling wax where needed to help fill any undercuts. Well... this was a much bigger job than anticipated, I thought it would be quick (I am always underestimating!) - it took up most of a whole day - but will be worth it for the next stage of pouring the plaster, which I plan to do this week.

For all the Stirrers...
Most ceramicists would already be aware of this but ceramic artist Vipoo Srivalasa is calling out for spoons for his Object:Spoon event - click on this link to find out more. 40 of the most outstanding spoons will be chosen and exhibited at Harvard in Boston, USA. 
Maybe we will submit one ourselves...?

Bookworms...
This week we have all felt like bookworms - reading loads of books - I don't think I have ever read as many in as short amount of time as I have this week. Between us I think we are up to about 40 or so! All in the name of research ( and some even about research). At least we can both now say Assignment number one - tick! 
Cass is even Assignment Two - tick - good for her!

Sunday Ceramics
Don't forget to check out all the other studios on Sunday Ceramics,
& if you are a ceramic artist you may even want to join in!

Until next time  - Keep Creating....

Artist as Researcher
Well it has been another huge week for us at EFS - loads & loads going on, as always - and no signs of slowing down in sight!
There was not as much creating happening this week, although we did manage to pack, fire and unpack a full kiln load.
The week was mainly taken up with writing & research. We are both working on several projects at once (mad I know) and this includes our Uni work and our collaboration projects.
I am researching the concept of 'home' and what that means. It is a very interesting topic and enjoying it so far... especially researching artworks related to the topic.

Pieces of Place
The other theme we are working on is our Collecting Country projects and we have been researching Place-making and Sense of Place. I love this area of investigation and particularly like the idea of 'pieces of place' as souvenirs. This term refers to an object that has been collected in it's original environment as a memento of the place or event and the act of collecting the piece personally gives it extra significance to the collector. Our work relates to this concept as we are utilising pieces of place and the idea of collecting imprints on site to create our artworks and wish to convey this importance of connection to place to our pieces. 
We have had some great success with this (see previous blog posts for some images) and will be continuing with the process for some time.

Sunday Ceramics
As I haven't done much creating this week at all, I thought I would take today to do some Sunday Ceramics... that is actually get my hands muddy and make something! 

Please check out the other ceramicists on the Sunday Ceramics blog too to see what others have been up to for the past week.

Until next week... be creative!