'Eye-Spots': Thrown Bone China.

All the images below are of ceramic pieces which belong to the collection 'Eye-Spots', 2011-12. This is the first project I produced for my final year at university.

 

'Eye-Spots' explores the human soul and it being related to the butterfly. This link is made in many mythological stories, cultures, and old wives tales. 

I started this project looking at the butterfly, and through many drawings came to concentrate on a butterfly's eye-spots as the main image source. This was reflected well in experimenting with bone china on the potter's wheel. 

 Bone china is well known as a superior clay, pure white and extremely translucent, but also known for how difficult it is to work with. Because of this, bone china is not recommended to throw with, and there is actually not that much clay in it!

 Bone china is my favourite clay to work with, I love its qualities, and enjoy trying to make the most of its white translucent nature. At its thinnest bone china can be almost see through. I also enjoy the challenge of trying to work with this material, and so this is the reason I chose to throw with it. Throwing with bone china is not the best material to use to produce technically correct pieces (especially if you're a novice like me!). However, an organic essence can be achieved without it looking forced. This sense of organically formed shapes relates strongly with the concept of butterflies and souls. So throwing with bone china turned out to be the perfect way to produce items for this project.

I experimented with many reduction glazes with these pieces, which being fired in a gas kiln can mean that results are hard to control. This is because so much relies on what chemicals are present in the firing, and so one thing absent in the next firing could possibly change the result. It helps if you are a scientist!

 I had a lot of fun producing tiles of experiments for this project, and it is something I wish to spend a lot of time doing again in the future. However at the moment I am concentrating on electric firing, as this is what I will have excess to after university.

Experimenting with these glazes on bone china was very exciting because it was quite unpredictable as to what actually would happen. There is nothing present in the clay as a colourant that could react with the glaze chemicals.

I believe that this work has a lot further to go, and I look forward to pushing further it at some point in the future.

 

Thank you for reading about my work, and any comments are very welcome.

Very First Post!

For my very first post I think I shall share some brief information about my profile picture...

Eye-Spots by Rachael Lawton. Thrown Bone China, 2011-12

This image features some of the pieces from 'Eye-Spots'. A collection of ceramic pieces which explore butterfly symbolism, and the human soul. There are many mythological stories, and cultures which relate the human soul to butterflies.
This concept was approached through drawing, as well as experimenting on the potter's wheel. Through this, I came to concentrate on the butterfly's eye-spots as the main image source. These eye-spots are found on many butterflies wings.
All the pieces from 'Eye-Spots' were thrown using bone china, and then a selection were coloured in various high firing reduction glazes.
The result is an abstract image of a butterfly, which helps to create the sense that these circles could actually be individual souls. I enjoy the ambiguous nature of this work, I believe it helps to carry a strong concept, particularly one which involves mythology.