Little Owls
I’m sitting in my garden under a huge full moon listening to Tawny owls. They are so loud and there are so many of them and I wonder what they are up to.
The night is warm despite it being late autumn, and I’m drinking a glass of wine. I’m thinking about Marija Gimbutas books on archeomythology and how she found that owls were already during paleolithic times considered to be symbols of death and regeneration. The Great Goddess would often be depicted as an owl or a vulture. I’m thinking that someone living 30.000 years ago would have been sitting in the warm autumn night just like me; looking up at the moon, sipping wine, listening to the Owls and feeling slightly spooked.
The picture shows a gang of Little Owls made of clay and just about to go into the kiln. I don’t think they are spooky but they certainly have an attitude. I am not sure how to glaze them yet, but I think they will be smoke fired just like my Fat Birds.
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Tags: archeomythology, clay, fat birds, glazing, kiln, little owls, Marija Gimbutas, smoke firing, Tawny owls
A journey into the mysterious…
This song is to me both camp and sublime – the words remind me of journeys I make in my mind when sitting in a forest or hill top.
The search for beauty and meaning has lead me to Shamanism and lately C. Jung’s writings on the collective unconsciousness and the archetypes.
The techniques I have learned through my studies have helped my art no end. Sometimes fully formed sculptures emerge in my mind’s eye – It is almost as if they just land there, asking to be created in clay. I know they have been waiting in my unconscious all along, and it is just a case of me recognizing them.
Below is a quote on the mysterious from Albert Einstein;
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man… I am satisfied with the mystery of life’s eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence — as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.”
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Tags: clay, ceramic sculpture, shamanism, c. jung, Albert Einstein, collective unconsciousness, The wolf of velvet fortune, archetypes
My Bay tree
My beautiful bay tree has got a disease and needs to come down. 
It is terribly sad, and suddenly I have all these houses surrounding me!
So now the bay is on the lawn, and Kate is helping to cut away the leaves. 
When everyone has left, Fox comes to inspect the damage. 
He doesn’t look too pleased.
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Tags: Fox
I have a small patch of garden next to my kitchen where I grow herbs and salad crops. I have placed a sculpture of Dionysus there and stuck bamboo canes into the ground to stop Fox from squashing the lettuce…
And this is what he has to say about that!
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Tags: Dionysus, Hastings fox
New Ceramic Workshops
The groups are limited to five participants only, so book your place early to save disappointment.
Here is a link to some further information: http://annakeiller.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/ceramic-workshops-3/
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Tags: ceramic courses, ceramic work shops, coiling, press moulding, slab building, smoke firing
I decided to put two of my ceramic torso through the smoke firing process…
I like the way the fire interact with the oxides.
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Tags: ceramic torso, oxides, smoke firing
I am still living and dreaming ferns and clay. While walking across the East Hill in lemon afternoon sunlight, I imagine a bronze age settlement alive with people and horses. A woman from the camp walks towards me across the bracken. Her shape is dark against the sun but I know she is smiling.
When I got home I made a ceramic torso with a fern from the hills. I daubed a thin coat of manganese oxide on her body and made the fern bright green using copper oxide and transparent glaze. The size is 50cm x 35 cm and she is made to hang on the wall. I have made the torso look as though it has been recently unearthed from some archaeological dig with holes and cracks incorporated in the design.
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Tags: archaeological dig, bracken, bronze age settlement, ceramic torso, clay, copper oxide, ferns, glaze, manganese oxide
The ferns are changing colour every day now. I am still busy taking their impressions.
It occurred to me that incorporating glass in the clay may look nice.
And a way of doing that may be to use mosaic tesserae. It is worth a try, so here I am scraping away clay to create a little pool for them to lie in. 
I want to prevent the glass from floating across the bowl any old way during the bisque firing when temperature will reach 1050 C and the glass will melt….
here’s hoping.
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Tags: anna keiller ceramics, clay, fern bowls, ferns, glass, mosaic, tesserae
So I have my ferns and the clay is ready to roll…
And away we go. Play time!
A fern bowl about 16 inch across and 5 high – it will shrink slightly in the kiln…
The beginning of a ceramic torso – 17 x 13
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Tags: ceramic torso, fern bowls, rolling clay
Autumn mist and ferns
Hunter’s Moon has passed and I feel relieved and sleepy…. This full moon was pink, huge and loud and it keept me awake several nights in a row. But now mellowness has returned. The earth is soft, giving up all her secrets as I walk across to collect ferns for my studio. The air is so moist and fragrant I can see our breath mingle in little clouds of mist. 
Lazy Hydrangeas shining in the rain.
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Tags: anna keiller studio, hunter's moon
