Looking ahead to the future in which I'm planning to continue with ceramics I need to go and visit more fairs where I could potentially show my ceramics in future. As Manchester is within easy reach it was a must to go and check it out. Once I managed to find the entrance to the building (along with about twelve other people who were searching too) I had a quick whizz around to get a general overview of the place. There were over 150 different artists and designer-makers from different fields such as ceramics, textiles, glass, wood, print, mixed media and many jewellery makers. I decided to concentrate on the stands by ceramic makers as these are my primary interest. I couldn't help also sto

As part of saying 'hello' to the new MA students and 'goodbye' to the finishing MA students UCLan's Art & Design MA students were invited to go on a day trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. As I've never been and have always wanted to go there I jumped at the opportunity to join them and it was well worth it. Not only is this park stuffed full of fantastic sculptures, has some interesting indoor exhibition spaces but we had a fantastic warm autumn day with all the tree turning colours. It was a real pity that we were there only for four hours. I am certain that there were many pieces dotted around the place I missed but here are my highlights from the trip: Tony Cragg: A Rare Category of Ob

It was both great and sad to see the MA degree show going up in the atrium of the Victoria building. Great as it pulled together and showcased all the work done by this year's Art & Design MA graduated. Sad because it means that they are leaving us. We could of course mumble and complain about the lack of exhibition space for each graduate etc. but let's focus on the positive. Our section was represented by five ceramic graduates and one design graduate who all put on a great display. Adele Davison Adele's work really comes together when displayed like this as it not only shows off her ceramics but also the shadows each individual piece creates. Her work is the most architectural of all and

Having previously got a superb result from firing Valentine's PF680 black clay in reduction I want to see how a similar approach will turn out if I use Potclay's Vulcan (medium) black clay. Making my initial pot (left) I used a combination of decorating techniques from shellac resist, design liners, masking out areas retain unglazed areas to applying a celadon glaze. Just as with the first pinch pot my black VUM pots have relief decorations towards the foot of the pots created by water etching. This revealed the first difference as it leaves the grog clearly visible in the recessed areas after water etching. So now I am hoping to have a similar contrast between matt and shiny areas as seen h

Test 1: Trying out white uni slip (50% ball clay + 50% china clay) applied onto bisque ware instead of onto leather hard greenware. The pattern is painted on with latex, covered with brushed on white slip and then by pealing off the latex resist with the overlaying slip reveals the pattern. This is rather laborious and potentially really quite messy creating quite a lot of dry clay dust. I am not sure whether this will go beyond this test - or indeed if the slip actually fuses with the clay. These go into the kiln in for a second bisque firing. These are my bisque fired results. It is clear that it matters what clay this slip is applied to. It adheres quite well to the black (PF680) and red