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. ...

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 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.

Lots of sculptural work is now up at #Rippinghamart online gallery. As some of you may know, I've been dealing with David and Jan Rippingham for the past few years and they have hand picked some very interesting and renowned artists, potters and crafts people. It's great to be sharing work through their online gallery again. Brand new pots now online. Have a peek here: https://theartonlinegallery.com/artist/shaun-hall/

A new camera is on its way...! In the meantime, here's some results with the old one. I seem to be doing more online product selling these days than actual physical galleries....so I need to get some better quality pictures to really "sell" the work. These are not bad...but time to get something that will do a bit more justice to the pots I think.

I've been testing out some sodium silicate wash on porcelain slip....in an attempt to generate some more textured surfaces. Some of the results are shown below. It's definitely something I want to progress with and especially with bowl forms. For now I'm going to try out a raku glaze and "wipe back" but I'm also keen to try out Obvara firing and also maybe some wood ash. It will have to wait until the weather warms up!

A batch of work is going to be made available through Studiopottery.co.uk. One is now already in the Chawan collection of S tephen Dee it's founder ! Check in and it should appear soon on the News page. www.studiopottery.co.uk The Raku Chawans developed rather unconsciously after a bout of ill health earlier this year, and were inspired by the potters of Japan, as well as the early work of the great Robin Welch . I spent some time in Wales too recently, and the rather rugged peaks and crags and shorelines all seem to have an echo in what I'm producing. They're more organic than anything I've previously done. I've never strayed into tea bowl territory much, but they seem to be doing well for me now and it feels like I'm developing some modicum of fluency. I particularly enjoy the freedom of mark making and incising on the wet clay and altering the rims. Two styles have surfaced, a straight sided "industrial" and an incised "wobbly" versio...

I was "bowled" over, excuse the pun, to find out from a friend that I was featured on Sony Liv TV in India! The programme is called "House Proud" , it's a kind of home shopping  show, come "Changing Rooms."  About ten minutes in , they feature one of my Raku teabowls, and a tapered raku bowl also makes a fleeting appearance. Nice to be featured, thank you Curocarte , thank-you Sony Liv. It's a funny old world, I may never have seen this, so it was a nice surprise. (By the way sadly I do not hail from Japan!) Watch the episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOHRxwgRywo