went to a throwing workshop in France, again pictures can be ound on my website

Yesterday I went to a exhibition by Frank Steyaert. On one floor showed his own work, one showed works by other ceramists that he collected, invited to his gallery and/or wrote about in the dutch magazine Klei (clay). The last floor showed work of his students some of them very famous themselves by now

More pictures can be found on my website

Today i had my second day of the colored porcelain workshop by henk wolvers… i made a vase and i’ m crossing my fingers that it wil stay whole….

This is the kind o landscape that inspired the vase:

I’m really busy… with ceramics: school is great i’ve learned a lot so far and i can see my work improves… it is a lot neater and better finished than before and also i’m learning about conceiving ideas making sketches….. lately i’ve been working on a set of cilinders:

And on a mural  of tiles made using a plaster mould:

I’m also taking a workshop on colored porcelain. h, here are some test tiles:

I also visited a stunning exhibition: MASTERS OF PRE-COLUMBIAN ART – THE DORA AND PAUL JANSSEN COLLECTION

 Today I went to an exhibition on the influence of the Ducth painter Jan Toorop ( and some other dutch/belgian painters and sculpturs) on Gustav Klimt: Toorop in Vienna: inspiring Klimt  I love both Klimt and Toorop. No a lot big Klimt paintings but a lot of sketches and beautiful reproduction of murals that have been destroyed by a fire.  All my favorite Toorop paintings were present though

this is just one of them “O Grave, Where Is Thy Victory? “

 Some pictures of my organic form: a shell… while it’s drying  in the meanwhile we started a new assignment: cilinders one structerd one smooth cut them up and join them together….

   So our first assignment for this year was making stones/pebbles out of  pinch pots.   we were supposed to make three: two with structure and one smooth one. Not just smooth but also a strong form… hmm don’t realy know ho else to explain…. i mean something can  have a smooth exterior both the form can have bumps and stuff but an the other had you can use a lot of structure and still have a smooth strong form.

  On the smooth rock we used terra sigilate, that we made ourselves, to burnish it. The others were bisquit fired (960°C) just like that and since we are not going to glaze them we could refire them at a heigher temp to change the color. I made my rocks out of ”black” clay and i’ refiring my structured ones: ano at 1150°C and one at 1200°.

 Any ways i am rather pleased with one of the structured ones ( the one i haven’t gotten back) and with the smooth one as well. I think they look like rocks and that the organic stuff used for making the patterns helps there a lot of the others used stuff like shell or symmetric things and just pressed them in the clay and tinking about it that makes it more artificial.. i guess the challenge would be to use these stamps to make a natural looking structure. SO i’m thinking of making some more at home and ttry out different shapes and stuff

We als made two pinch pots that we burnished with terra sigilata and that we will smoke fire later and we made tiles to wash in with oxides and a platter as well.kinda screwed up mine when i lifted it to finish up the rim: after a week of drying it was still really soft so i’m going to make a new one if there is time

The last couple of weeks we have been throwing and i’m struggling to throw in the new way i learned over the holidays (new grip: instead of using my knuckles to pull up the clay  onthe outside i us the part of my hand between my index finger and thumb now… feels like learning to throw all over again but with the advantage that i more or less know what i’m doing so i can correct myself better

Now we have a week of and i’m thinking of my new assignment: a organic form  need to sculpt it… definitely not my cup of tea

Allthough i’m starting with the basics again the classes are great because of the teacher’s approach. Still have to get use to the freedom…. thinking outside of the assignments coz i was not used to that in Gouda

Yesterday Karel and I went to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. They are open untill ten in the evening on friday and on those days there’s also a lot going on.

Yesterday the Japanese DJ Ken Ishii had a set… it sounded great but becoz of the location (the central hall) and  a lot of talking people the music kind of died away.

The exhibits we saw were great though. They always have a number of exhibits: the regular one, there was on about color in Van Gogh’s works but we didn’t see that (i will go and see it later  coz it’s on till ocobere next year) and they were hosting the Japanese summer which included three exhibits:

1. Wonders of Imperial Japan, Meiji art from the Khalili collection
2. A Tokaido Make-over
3. Women from Tokyo & Paris

Allthough the last one is kind of featured as the main exhibti we liked it least… the japanese part was ok the french part was kind of boring but the others made up for this…. I saw some really nice ceramic item but i also really liked the lacquer and the email cloisonne stuff.  Also the woodprints and pictures were great.

We are both really happy that we went to see this.

   today i visited an exhibition by two Belgian ceramists: Monique Muylaert and Herman Muys. I’m not a big fan of sculptures but i like his series of containers and her murals rock