Shaping up

When I first started making these porcelain bowls they would consistently come out warped and deformed. Great fun sometimes, but mostly very frustrating, and most of them ended their life in the bin. But lately they have been holding their shape a lot better, so now I can start consentrating on how to decorate them. This should be great fun!!



Small things

I have been making mostly smaller items lately, mainly buttons and pieces for jewellery. Perfect fits for a kiln already overloaded with large Christmassy stuff. 5 of my studio mates are attending the Christmas market at DOGA this year, which is pretty exiting. Others have other markets and exhibitions coming up, so the whole studio is in the middle of the usual pre-Christmas frenzy.

My buttons are hand shaped and are pretty wonky and rustic looking. I used a clay with iron speckles, and glazed them with a matt cream glaze, giving them an oatmeal kind of colour.

I have also been experimenting with my plaster cast, to see what other uses I might find for them. Still don't have any finished products to show you, but above are parts of my 'deconstructed duck', which might end up as jewelry.

Cool new ideas

While I have been laying rather low lately, other people have been really busy. A couple of crafty designers have caught my eye this past year, and last month they were both amongst the designers presented in the '100% Norway' section of the 100% Design Exhibition in London.

Kristine Bjaadal has designed a table cloth with a hidden pattern in the mesh, which only appears when wet. So what could have been an ugly spill, will now bring out a pretty pattern. Clever, eh?

Siren Wilhelmsen has created a clock that knits the passing of time. In her own words: "It is knitting the hours and the days and shows the time as something that is constantly moving, changing and developing. Every passing of a half hour is marked by the knitting of a mesh, a full day is registered as one round around the clock and a year results in a 2-m-long scarf. After one year the yarn has to be replaced  with a new one and a new year can be knitted. The year that has past is this year's scarf. And the coming year is the thread still unknitted."