Embroidered pottery

I need a project for 2009 – slow cloth – something to pick up and put down with no pressure and no deadline.

This week I sorted through my old TAFE college notes from the ceramic certificate I completed in...1980 something...



I knew even as I dumped notes in the recycle bin that I would find a need for molecular formula (I can’t even believe I once knew how to do it!)
One of my potter friends keeps her notes just to prove to herself that she once had a brain.

Threads started running around my head..

Memories – digging pits for blackfiring – pulling glowing red hot pots from raku –

...building a bourry box kiln in the grounds of the college and sharing salt firings with the class mates who became my friends for the next 30 years (plates of food and a flagon or two set the tone for firings to come)

...staying up til 3am cursing the cone that took forever to bend.

...the excitement of cracking the door of a still hot kiln because I just couldn’t wait any longer for it to cool

...the oohs of a good firing and the aargh of a bad pot (always the one pot already spoken for)



...and I recalled saying as I stacked yet another kiln –
“If this was sewn it would be finished now, I don’t have to fire fabric!!”

and that is when IT came to me – I could embroider my pottery – well, not the *actual* pottery, images of it, not sure how but ideas are flowing and it WILL come together - (and who is to say NOT the *actual* pottery, who knows yet)

I’m going through my ceramic textbooks and sketching and photographing, and wondering about staining cloth with oxides (thought of this when I was rust dyeing but didn’t get around to testing it)

I think this will be a good year.