A little history about me, I started out doing pencil drawings, selling them to friends and friends of friends, slowly I developed and started painting, a little water colour and then I found oils. Wow they are fantastic, they give your paintings life, texture and best of all when you go wrong you can scrape it all off and start again!
So that was Jane Samuel, the artist. Then that Jane Samuel discovered clay and so Jane Samuel thought, crafted and fired JS-Ceramics
I fell in love with clay. It gives me all I am looking for and more. I feel I could develop further than I can imagine, I have already learnt that the more I learn about clay the less I know, there’s coiling, pinching, slipcasting, glazing, agate, terra sigilata, naked clay, smoke firing, raku…….I could go on and on, but then you, the reader of this blog could get bored, something I don’t want!
Hi Jane, Lovely photgraphs and GREAT web page!
Your images are great, they look superb with all the black around them. I so love your flowery petal forms which appear to be like living, organic aquatic forms dancing in the warm currents of the great oceans.They are beautiful objects in their own right, regardless of what they remind me of personally. The main thing is they do evoke the sea that I know you so obviously love. I do feel the thinner you can get the forms the more successful they will become as art forms for you.
I would like to think I don’t give out unwarranted complimentary ctiticism to any art form, or artist, quite the opposite I’ve been told. So be it. I do think your eight piece ‘wave’ installation piece is quite exquisite! The interaction between clay and water is a marriage of materials that blend together so well, and so inspirational as a concept.The whiteness and smoothness of the hard, static, porcelain forms, with the encroaching soft, intangible foam on the bed of granular sand, is a beautiful composition of eclectic textures, which shows you have an eye for quality art.
My only criticism, if you can call it that is, I feel if you could take a photo from the water, a low angle shot (with you lying down in it). One of the wave as it breaks around the narrow tips of the forms, which would look amazing and add something quite remarkable to your collection of images, I believe.
I am very proud of you darling, and always been in awe of your patience and attention to detail when working with clay, and am very glad I had the opportunity to work with you, and those years we had together.
Love,
Gwil
Hi Gwil,
Thank you for your comments, they really are appreciated as no, you don’t give out compliments just for the sake of them!
I am working very much on making my porcelain forms thinner and taller, challenging the clay as well as my ability! For some of the pieces I am firing them three times working with the way porcelain slumps and moves at the higher temperatures, using that movement to enhance each piece…doesn’t always work though…
Recognition must be given to my photographer, Kathryn Samuel, we had a lot of fun setting up the porcelain installation and tried many different ideas with them culminating in the end photographs you see here in my gallery.
Smoke firing is still on the agenda using my bin of course(!) along with white terra sigilata and beeswax. I’ve tried making porcelain terra sigilata, but the yield is terrible, so I will be sticking to making it with stoneware for the foreseeable future.
I hope that you will keep following my blogs as you are right people do seem to enjoy reading them, and thank you again Gwil for your comments!
Jane