Shaun Hall's Raku Ceramics Blogspot

Just a quick post to say "Hi" during Lockdown! Lots of things have changed, personally speaking, the loss of my teaching profession has allowed a bit more time for potting- in between home schooling. Strange days indeed. It's difficult to express just quite how wierd life is these days.  I hope galleries and craft shops will get back to normal soon. I have work with Erwood Station in Wales and Buckenham Gallery  in Southwold. I am planning on re supplying them very soon.  In the meantime I am potting and re supplying my etsy store.  https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ShaunPots It has gone surprisingly smoothly and I would recommend etsy. I love the fact that there are no "middlemen" hassling you about your work. Or unscrupulous internet gallery owners who refuse to pay up three months later  for your sales. I've had enough of that and the disrespect metered out to the crafter. Stuff them.  For me it is perfect and I have been lucky to make quite a few sales. ...

I had the pleasure of popping along to the Buckenham Galleries in Southwold, Suffolk yesterday to drop off some new work for their summer show. It's always enjoyable and I had a nice chat about art with  curator/owner  Graham. I've been lucky to have work with them for over 10 years now. So a celebration of sorts! http://www.buckenhamgalleries.co.uk/

A recent holiday trip  to   St Ives  - meant I could at last visit the Leach Pottery. This was  25 years after I had first tried visiting as a student when it was closed. I think it was just after Leach's wife, Janet, had died, so I remember feeling really disappointed.  To finally get there after so long, since my halycon  student days, was somewhat of an emotional experience. Leach is not someone who has particularly influenced my style of work, I guess I pitch somewhere within  mid century- modernism, (I was always a Rie- Coper   fan back at Uni)- but you cannot deny he is a giant of pottery- with a tremendous legacy. A few years back I developed some problems with high blood pressure and it caused me to pause and reflect and  re evaluate my own work. You tend to work within a specific narrow field, to shut out "other" stuff- perhaps I was a bit arrogant, stubborn even - but I was prone to dismiss the grand- father of Bri...

It's taken me some time to get my act together and start doing some new raku firings. I've had to overcome one or two problems regarding smoke- from a neighbour who was concerned. It's one of the issues with raku or smoke firing I guess- especially living in North Essex, which is getting increasingly built up. To this end, I sunk two post reduction bins into the ground, so that they might be lidded, and double sealed on top by a larger dustbin- to which I have grafted on a tall metal funnel. I was concerned this might add to the "draw" in the reduction bin and cause a burn out- but this fear proved unfounded. Apart from the usual initial burst of smoke before sealing- the ongoing post reduction smoke is piped - well - up up and away from the neighbours direction. I would say it's cut down on about 75 percent of the smoke. Of course I now put out the second hand wood shavings out  with water- rather than letting them smoulder away. I think this was a big fac...

I glazed a couple of volcanic/crater glaze tapered bowls recently. They almost "half" work- but I'm still not convinced I've got it right- although it's promising. I layered combinations of glaze but I'm having a slight problem with the thick layers of silicon carbide glaze crawling. Sticky fingers maybe? Lots more to come over the next few months, probably with the next recipe- Pinnel Strontium Crater - with a variety of glaze stain additions . It's a pretty reliable recipe so fingers crossed.