Joey Burns discusses the opportunities available to a newbie wood-firer
I n April 2007 I had the good fortune (or possibly misfortune) of having my first stoke of an anagama, raging at around 1300ºC. The calmness broke instantly when the door was opened and the first chunk of pine was awkwardly fumbled into the fire box; the hairs on my fingers singed through the leather gloves and the heat dried my face in a life-changing second that has, ever since, severely narrowed my interest in ceramics. I no longer think of pushing buttons or fiddling with taps and burners. I want to burn stuff straight from the palms of my hands … and lots of it! |
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Jenny Mulcahy reports on her recent involvement with a Queensland anniversary project
L ast year Queensland was awash with a variety of activities and projects celebrating the 150th anniversary of the official recognition of Queensland as a separate colony. Many organisations received funding for celebrations specific to individual communities to mark the occasion. One such project was Q150, Now and Then: 150 years of art making in Queensland. Curated by Ross Searl,for the Umbrella Studio for Contemporary Art, the exhibition’s emphasis was on the history of art making in Townsville over the past 150 years.
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Yeats Gruin considers mentoring
S tretching out in front of me were lines and lines and piles and piles of huge brown clay urns with shining swollen bellies, small necks and lids tightly wrapped with a piece of square red cloth. As I moved closer, a rich fermented fragrant smell of rice wine was all over every pore and in every vein. This memorable scene occurred when, as a child, I visited the Chinese Municipal Winery factory where my father worked. It was also the first impression of a huge clay pot, functional, humble, powerful and authentically beautiful, which is engraved in my mind to this day. I fell in love then with the huge urns used at home for storing rice, pickling vegetables or smoking meat. This rich Chinese cultural background and, in a somewhat similar way, burdensome traditional baggage, has been carried with me through all my life, even though I left my motherland over thirty years ago to embrace the then described ‘western new world’.
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