Surface Paradise

A need to escape from Brisbania led me to beg fellow Umbrellaist and good friend Shannon Garson to accompany her on a weekend ceramic workshop at the Gold Coast Potters Association. She was more than happy to have me along as she was touching on jewellery making in the workshop and adorable little Pearl, her 4mth old baby was also coming and in need of occassional distraction and cuddles (not that I got much of a look in with 15 or so clucky women at the workshop).

Shannon demonstrates her leaf tattoo painting style in sepia watercolour.

Shannon generously demonstrated many of her surface decoration techniques (slip trailing, watercolour-like brush work, shellac resists and sgraffito) as well as expertly throwing some tricksy southern ice clay and demonstrating the turning of the drying pots. While I have no intention of getting into ceramics myself, I gained plenty of useful knowledge during the workshop and enjoyed meeting the lovely ladies from the Potters group who were so appreciative of Shannon's tuition.

Top: Throwing

Bottom: Shannon with Anne

We also publicly showed for the very first time our collaborative project: Nibble. Shannon has created some delightful tiny porcelain pieces which I have turned into rings (below), necklaces, earrings and brooches with st silver and gold. Shannon was initially inspired after making a gift of porcelain miniature food for a child's dolls house and we have always wanted to do a collaboration together. Giftmaking often inspires me too as I try to make something different from my usual to suit a specific person and this often leads to a whole new tangent! Much of the Nibble range is about food and nurturing: there are peas in pods, eggs in nests, iced vovos and pumpkins. More photos of it on this site in a review by participant Anne Mossman and we'll be publicising it more soon. Any suggestions on where and how to exhibit it are most welcome!

Above top: rings from the Nibble collection
Below: surface decoration equip, workshop participants