Happy New Year 2014

Best wishes to my followers, may 2014 be a truly great year for you and your family and friends.

I think mine will have a few challenges.  Among other things I will be the Convener for the Port Hacking Potter National Competition and Exhibition which is held every second year at the Hazelhurst Regional Art Gallery.  We are hoping to introduce a new section this year and it would be great if we could attract a new sponsor for that section.. You can see images from the last Competition HERE

Winner Open Wheel Thrown.  Kathryn Mitchell 2012

 (Kathryn Mitchell Ceramics of Qld - now based in the Isle of Man).

This will be the 48th Competition so it has a long history.  It has been a stepping stone for many emerging ceramic artists who have gone on to big things, one of note being Gail Nichols who won a prize in an early competition while she was still a student.  

close up of my 2012 entry - a trio of wood fired vases

The good thing about these events is the interaction with ceramic artists from all over the country.  We had one winner from Western Australia and another from Queensland in 2012.

We also have been honoured with the outstanding judges.  In 2012 it was Greg Daly and this year it will be Patsy Hely.  I think it fitting that they both work in the National Capital, Canberra at the National University which has an outstanding ceramics department.

So it could be a big year for me as there are family things planned too...

In the meantime, I'll have to start some new series that I can enter myself.  I have no expectation of a prize but I think entering a competition like this helps to extend your practise.. so not sure yet if it will be wheel or hand built. (I might just add that it is not a curated competition and the judging is undertaken with each work  numbered (no names)  so all work is judged on merit) Stay tuned...

After a very hot start to summer and bushfires all around the outskirts of Sydney, we had some good coastal rain so my garden needs some attention.  My Native Violets are loving the conditions..

Happy New Year all..

maybe I'll see you on Facebook?  https://www.facebook.com/AnnasCeramics

Merry Christmas to you

I'd like to wish all my friends, online or off line, a very Merry Christmas with lots of good food and fine company to share it with.

Here is a little Christmas Tree votive for you.  I might make some more of these next year.

See you on Facebook too - https://www.facebook.com/AnnasCeramics

Mud Colony - morphs to Facebook

Mud Colony has been a wonderful inspiring linkup of many potters across the globe who in turn have been inspired, friended and prodded along in the most gentle comradely way by the energetic Adriana Christenson.

The blog link will be finishing this week but you will still be able to go there and trawl the archived postings of the past couple of years. HERE.

Most of us have also made the transition to Facebook and the Group page also called Mud Colony.  I look forward to keeping in touch with my clay friends there.

In memory of the fun times here are some images that relate to Adriana and the Mud Colony colonists...

Adriana and I in the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens

A holiday in Noosa where I also met up with Ellen Appleby

Ellen at her exhibition at the KARI Gallery

meeting up at Gulgong - Ellen, Anna, Adriana, Sadhana and Kim

wonderful handbuilt work by Sadhana at her exhibition in Paddington NSW

my little pig amongst the participatory installation at Gulgong

What we do - blogging on our Mud Colony odessy, Adriana, Sadhana and Marian

Anna, Ellen and Amy at the Kerrie Lowe Gallery in Newtown...

Will we fade into the Sunset?  No we are just moving over to the Facebook Group.. See you there :)

and here is a glimpse of the work I had on sale yesterday at the Port Hacking Potters Group stall in Cronulla.