She's just mad about me

Nat VS Midget almost ready for kiln.Broody MP cooling down.

I'm just mad about saffron

Midget vs Nat.1964-69,cobalt and underglaze (work in progress)

Fidget Merrily

Midget at Crescent Head.Beginning of Midget VS Nat pot.

the chase

 

"On the evening of 9 August 1983, Peterson was travelling to Noosa to windsurf the next day. He pulled up at Beenleigh, south of Brisbane, to sleep but was startled by a police car with its siren blaring; the occurrence set Peterson into a panic and he speedily drove away. He had not realised the police car was actually going in the opposite direction and the police officer consequently pursued Peterson, with 20 police cars eventually joining the chase. Peterson mounted the footpath at one point, as the high-speed chase proceeded the vast distance to Brisbane, where a further 15 police cars formed a roadblock on the Story Bridge; the roadblock caused Peterson to stop. The pursuit later appeared on the national Australian news and became known in surfing circles as "the chase"."
Robert Forster. MP,The Monthly ,December 2012

Robert Forster is a singer–songwriter and co-founder of The Go-Betweens. His collection of music criticism, The 10 Rules of Rock and Roll, was published in 2009.

Midget VS Nat

Beginning stages of a narrative jar exploring the relationship between Nat Young and Midget Farrelly.

Devil in the detail

 MH,MH &MP

 Fangtail

The new 'Animal'

A life is a life.....

The Wednesday Dance

a Wash

The brown colourant is cobalt carbonate with a pinch of iron.When fired and glazed it becomes the traditional cobalt bluish.

Keith don't go.

  “How strange it was to see men do something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant, as though nobody saw or cared."

Grace and Danger

MP poise

Blues

 

Cobalt-blue glazes appeared in Iran in the 9th century but later fell out of use. They were taken up again in the 14th to the 18th century in response to the popularity of blue-and-white ware with Chinese and European clients.

The decoration on these new white-glazed wares is either plain – in direct imitation of Chinese porcelain wares, which have very little decoration as their beauty is inherent in their harmonious shapes – or has some simple decoration in a blue pigment made from cobalt, which was imported to Iraq from mines (which we know were operational in the Abbasid period) in Oman and the Northern Hijaz.

Abbasid-made white vessels with simple decoration applied in blue were re-exported to China, where they inspired a new tradition of ‘blue-on-white’. Today this is perhaps the most characteristic ceramic style associated with China, but originally the Chinese did not know the cobalt-blue pigment, which they called ‘Muhammadan blue’. Over the centuries, this ‘blue-on-white’ tradition brought Europe ‘chinoiserie’ (again through the medium of the eastern Islamic lands – the Safavids were very keen on it!), and ultimately the ubiquitous ‘willow pattern’.Thomas Turner 1780’s based on shan-shui patterns

Some scholars suggest that cobalt was first used to decorate ceramics in Basra about 800 tin - glaze. By the early thirteenth century, Iranian potters were creating radial designs in cobalt on white grounds. In 1301, the Persian craftsman Abu'l-Qasim noted that the source for cobalt was in the mountains near the town of Kashan. The adoption of cobalt in Chinese porcelain decoration has been linked to the presence in China of wealthy Persian merchant communities who may have introduced the new color to Chinese potters. If cobalt was initially introduced to China from the Near East, as some scholars suggest, then Chinese potters more than repaid the favor in the wealth of decorative motifs with which they adorned the blue-and-white wares produced for export.

Cobalt blues....

Filling in the gaps with cobalt oxide/carbonate.The word cobalt is derived from the German kobalt, from kobold meaning "goblin", a superstitious term used for the ore of cobalt by miners.

G'day sport......

This blog is a kind of aside and diary dedicated to my own recording of the making process of works for the Basil Sellers Art Prize for Sport.Basil Sellers AM, (born 1935), grew up in the sports-mad Railway Colonies in India, where he was introduced to badminton, tennis and of course cricket. He migrated with his family to Australia in 1948, and was educated at Kings College, Adelaide. As a Businessman and philanthropist, Basil made his career breathing life into ailing companies. Basil never went to university and instead learned his business skill on the job. Leaving school at 16, he started working at the Bank of South Australia then two years later joined a stock broking firm. 

Basil has been recognised as a keen art collector and patron. Collecting for over 35 years, his collection contains Post War Australian art and many of the European modernists, with a particular interest in the Fauves (1906/7) and the Cubists. Basil has also funded the bi annual art prize of $15,000 in the South East of New South Wales.
In 2007 Basil Sellers launched the Basil Sellers Art Prize which was initiated in 2008, in association with the Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne. The first prize of $100,000 is awarded to an Australian who produces a piece of art which incorporates an image of sport. Basil believes that art in the past has reflected society (Wars, Religion, Ballet,Horses etc.) but in recent years has ignored the vast influence of sport. The award bridges the gulf which exists and connects art and sport and is bi-annual.

My entry is based around surf-culture and takes the form of three urns each featuring a surfing identity and the mythology surrounding them.

And so it begins.