Outings in Canberra

We've been fortunate enough to have met many generous and accommodating Aussies, who are excited to show us around their beautiful and diverse country, and home town of Canberra.

One of our first trips into Canberra was with Georgina and her mother, to go to the local farmer's market on Saturday morning. When we arrived at the market, which was located in a huge warehouse, it was alive and bustling full of people. We decided to grab a quick coffee and watch some cooking demonstrations before we began our shopping. After this, we took a few laps around the market to scope it out. There were so many beautiful items: fresh flowers, fruit and veg, honey, truffles, meat, gorgeous seafood, and yummy baked goods! Southern Australia is known for it's truffles (Canberra is currently having a truffle festival) and honey (Tazmania is supposed to have some of the best honey in the world!). Australia is also known for Vegemite (neither of us are a fan! think, salty, stale, yeast flavor), and lamingtons, which we both love; a moist white cake covered in chocolate and coconut...yum! Of course, their coffees and teas are also famous, which have been wonderful everywhere we've gone.

Some of my favorite flowers, at the farmers market.

The homestead that we live at has had a few different gallery openings in the time that we have been here, and it has been interesting to see the diversity of the art from the local artists.




A member of the Canberra Potter's Society, David, was nice enough to take us to the nearby town of Gundaroo to visit a local couple who do pottery, Ian Jone, and Moraig McKenna. They bought a few acres of land in the country with an old church on the property, and they converted the church into a gallery space, adding a house and studio off of that. Unfortunately, a few months ago, the house portion of the building burnt down, so they were in the renovation process when we came to visit. What was left of the old church, and what has been built of the connecting home was beautiful, we can only imagine how lovely it will be when it's finished!

Here is a link to their studio if you'd like to check it out!:

http://www.oldsaintlukesstudio.com.au/index.html

Adam walking through the surrounding stone wall and courtyard. The church is to his left, and the home is attached on the right.

Ian's anagama kiln.

Coming home, we saw a group of about 12 kangaroos standing just by the driveway!

As he began talking about in our previous post, Adam experimented with an idea that he had: digging a pot into the ground, pouring plaster into the hole, then making a mold off of that. After he dug up the plaster piece, he had to be creative with his limited resources in order to make a mold out of it.

The pot shape in the middle is the plaster that took the shape of the hole that he dug into the ground.

The mold is set and ready to take apart!

Some of my tea bowls.

Adam threw this cute set for me to decorate!

Michael was nice enough to take us into Canberra for a few days to check out all of the tourist attractions: the National Museum of Australia, the National Gallery of Australia, the Parliament House, the Old Parliament House, Canberra Glassworks (a glass blowing studio), the ANU School of Art, and the Black Mountain Tower.

The Carillion Bell Tower on lake Burley Griffin, given to Canberra by the British government celebrating the 50th anniversary of the National Capital. It has 53 bells, and opened April 26, 1970.

Totems at the National Gallery.

Sculpture by Australian artist, Bert Flugelman.

Kinda cool...kinda creepy.

In front of the Parliament House.

The train kiln at ANU.

Do you see the man's profile in the negative space between the pots?

A giant pot by a Japanese artist that was never fired.

The National Museum

An echidna, or spiny ant eater

Aboriginal art on a piece of gum tree bark

The National Museum courtyard

Platypus...much smaller than we had imagined!

A model of the Sydney Opera House...very cool view

The Needle on Black Mountain that we went up! There is also a rotating restaurant up there.

View of the city of Canberra from the Needle.

We're loving all of the sight seeing that we've been able to do locally in the last few weeks! Our next post will be about our favorite long weekend of sight seeing here so far! Cheers :)

Wood firing #1

This post is a little overdue...just pretend that we posted it about 3 weeks ago :)

First wood firing of the residency! I have been making pots for 3 weeks now and preping for the firing by splitting and stacking wood. We started loading the kiln at 7:00 am Friday morning. After finishing the load we lit the fire outside the air ports. This went on for 6 hours allowing the fire to slowly wick into the firebox. The firing went on for 36 hours with various potters and people stopping by to help stoke the kiln. After the kiln was at peak temperature for 12 hours I began to reduction cool the kiln. This is a process of putting the kiln into a reducing atmosphere and adding small amounts of wood into the spy ports to cool the kiln to 700 degrees C. The kiln was then sealed up with mud and left to cool naturally. The reasoning behind reduction cooling is to take away the oxygen molecules and chemically change the iron in the clay from red iron oxide (Fe2O3) to black iron oxide (FeO). This results in a surface that has deep rich reds oranges and purples.



Me inside the Tube Kiln ready to load some pots





Michael the property manager getting the inital fire for the kiln going.

Strange its seems like just a hole

I have had this idea to make a vessel by digging a hole and filling it up with plaster then making a mold from the plaster form. Then pressing clay into the surface to create a vessel. Not the easiest way to create a clay object but the process was a lot of fun. The reasoning behind making this piece was inspired by the Australian landscape and being in this country. I wanted to have a connection to the land, with both the process of forming the object in the earth in which I am a part of, to the firing of the kiln with local Gum trees.

Nice reducing flame on yet another beautiful Australian night!

This is the Tube Kiln from a distance, also it was a little chilly so we started a fire in a barrel to keep warm during the night.

Checking the kiln to see if the cones were getting soft. The first cone that is bent over a bit is the 08 cone. This cone lets me know that the pots are hot enough to put the kiln into body reduction. A process of increasing fuel and closing off the flue to the chimney. This makes a dark red flame come out the chimney and thick black smoke due to the excess of unburnt fuel.

Found a local Skink on a piece of wood during the firing. Good thing I saw this little bugga cause he would have been crsipy.

Not so cute, a Huntsmen spider on the side of a log. eek!!!!!

Doing a little high fire Raku at 1300 degrees C.

Pulled out a small jar from the kiln to set into some unburnt wood chips in our fire.

The main wood port to the firebox of the kiln. at 1300 degrees C!!!!

The plaster mold that I excavated from the ground

Cleaning the plaster off and prepping it for the next step in the mold process.

 Stay tuned for more pots and firing pics!!!!!