Rose and the Tiny Dancer

It's been a very busy couple of months for me with work and preparation for our SALA exhibition, which opened last Wednesday night at the Urban Cow Gallery in down town Adelaide.


The Clay Collective put on yet another great show with our usual eclectic mélange of works! It was a terrific to catch up with some old faces and meet and greet many new ones. A very bubbly evening, fun with a capital F.

Time and weather where certainly not on my side with this one. How many times did I throw my hands in the air and and yell... 'That's it, it's never going to happen, I'm pulling out!' ...(in true Drama Queen style)... Plenty! but it all came together somehow and I am so in love with my Tiny Dancer.
I had to give into the weather, it was just so wet and cold up here at the Blue Door Studio, so I converted a newly vacated bedroom into a cosy Hand building Studio (Luxury!) A couple of tables, a comfy chair, a CD player and a Heater, what more could you ask for!









I didn't have time to test the materials for this project but a lot of educated guessing and a bit of luck and I couldn't have been happier.




It really was a tense 7 days from start to pulling her from the kiln still warm and bundling her into the car on exhibition set up morning,but now I know it can be done in the middle of a Lenswood winter, OK so I did steam her for 24 hrs and leaving the oil heater on 24/7 for a week did nothing for my carbon footprint.




A blend of Feeneys Buff Raku and Keans White Hand building clay allowed very quick building. and created a lovley softening undertone where the porcelain slip top layer was lightly sponged back.


I used Gestley Borate and body stains (1 part GB as to 2 parts BS) mixed with water to apply light washes to the dress, boots, headscarf and the banding over her eyes which again I sponged back into. She spent 24 hrs steaming in the kiln and then slowly once fired to about 1200 degrees,may be just under.















Rather than a literal representation of a dancing figure I was striving for a painterly dream like suggestion of an intimate moment of introspection and I couldn't be more pleased with the results...

And somehow it all came together and I am so in love with my Tiny Dancer!





Till next time Cheers from the Bluedoor (Rose Maguire Ceramics)