Shaun Hall's Raku Ceramics Blogspot

There's new work en route to the beautiful Erwood Station Gallery in Builth, Powys. It's a picturesque converted railway station and really worth a visit if you are that way. There's a great selection of contemporary craft and art and I really like the work they curate. I'm really pleased to be asked to contribute work again  this month. Here's a few of the pieces that will shortly be available for sale. http://www.erwoodstation.com/  

I was really pleased to send some new work to the Ledbury Art Gallery in Herefordshire this week. It's an offshoot of the Lion Street and Erwood Station Galleries. I've been busy double boxing and wrapping pots so hopefully it's a good representation of my current work. Bon Voyage! Aside from that, the sodium silicate test pots are coming along nicely, and I've been glaze testing in the new Cromartie kiln. This time it's stoneware temperature, but the effects I've been perservering with have a little of the immediacy and tactile quality of Raku...so more on that later I hope! A additional range perhaps. Web stuff:  http://www.ledburyreporter.co.uk/news/ledbury/16167370.ledbury-has-a-new-art-gallery/ http://www.erwoodstation.com/ Pictured - some of my raku work and Brent Blair and the manager at Ledbury.

Erwood Station Gallery is one of my favourite places, based in Builth-wells in Powys. Perched on a picturesque hillside with stunning views, roaming sheep... it is situated at the site of an old railway station. Carriages and the old station  double as a fantastic  gallery space, and the work displayed is always carefully arranged and curated. I feel honoured to exhibit at what is primarily a gallery for Welsh and borders artists. (I'm from my native Essex!) So a grouping of medium dishes, small chawans, and large dishes is on it's way. Prices range from £45 for smaller Chawans   to £75 for one of the larger copper, blue and white crackle  dishes. http://www.erwoodstation.com/

Working in Raku doesn't always go to plan. A lapse of concentration here, the wrong temperature, too slow to get the pots in the smoking bins, dropping and cracking  pots, getting them stuck together in the kiln...anything and everything can and does go wrong. So it's tough when you get a pot that's ultimately flawed but not bad enough to merit being banished to the back garden by the fish pool rockery...or death by going under the hammer. Here are one or two ultimately flawed pots that I felt deserved a stay of execution. (I'm sorry the really bad ones are already under our patio...) This is the curse of Raku...so many pots get sacrificed...

It's all go here, lots of glaze firing going on. Hopefully this batch of current work will make it's way to galleries in Wales later this summer. It's hot work, but so far so good. Here are some recent images.