17th - 20th January - First Firing was a dynamic exhibition of final work by MA Ceramic students from Bath School of Art and Design. The centre of my own display featured the bespoke tools that I made for building the Gateway of Dreams, my two metre high outdoor ceramic sculpture that is now sited near the main entrance to the Art School. Beneath the tools was a video showing a time-lapse film of the actual build in Ibstock Brick's Cattybrook factory.
Flanking the central display, were two of my smaller sculptures: 'Karaburan' - made in oxidised stoneware, and 'Rashaba' in oxidised red brick clay. These names, in case you are wondering, are names of winds. Karaburan is a winter wind - The form of this piece is like a billowing sail, but the dark extrusions emerging from its surface are like the water-darkened stones that emerge through the thawing snow. Rashaba is the black wind - This form is cracked and weathered like rocks that have been chafed away by the blowing sand and cracked by the icy cold of a desert night.