Ceramic Workshops in Hastings Autum 2010
Published August 17, 2010
I have now had a chance to update my ceramic workshop diary with new dates for the autumn, and here they are..
http://annakeiller.com/workshops/workshop-diary/
There are two different workshop types to choose from;
Introduction to sculpting, plaque or bowl making without a wheel. These classes take place on Sundays from 10am – 3pm and include lunch, tea, coffee and cake. We basically work from 10am until lunch which is home made pasta with local sea food and salad followed by pud and coffee. I use organic produce and bread from Judges bakery.
After lunch we finish what we started during the morning session. Two weeks later, when I have fired the work, we meet up again to glaze and smoke fire.
These workshops are suitable for beginners and for people who have worked with clay before . The groups are small with max. 6 people.
The cost for two workshops is £70 including all materials, firings and lunch.
The 5 session workshops take place on Saturday afternoons and cover coiling, slab building and press moulding techniques as well as glazing and smoke firing. The sessions are 2.5 hours long and the cost for all 5 sessions including materials, firings, tea and refreshments is £120. Groups are small with max 6 participants.
Pomegranates; the worship continues!
Published June 19, 2010I have now glazed the bodies of the first few pomegranates and decided to smoke fire them
to see what the smoke would do to the white clay at the top.
It was a beautiful day with just the right amount of wind to fan the smouldering sawdust. 
The smoke firing process takes about 15-20 hours and it is best not to remove the lid until the heat has died down, or the sudden change of temperature might cause the ceramic sculptures to crack. I found it really difficult not to have a sneaky peak…
The pomegranates are between 20-30 cm tall.
Art is for everyone!
Published May 16, 2010I sometimes hear people say that they ‘haven’t an artistic bone in their body’ and I can’t help feeling both sad and a little bit upset. I believe that art and artistic expression is our birth right; everyone is born creative, curious, expressive and full of joy and exuberance. Most of that is ‘educated’ out of us at an early age. We are taught that for art to be considered ‘good’ it must be expensive and forbidding, the artist should preferably be dead, and his/her work hung behind bars in a museum.
I am delighted to find that most people who come to my ceramic workshops produce expressive, individual and beautiful work and that they have a fantastic time doing so. During one of my first classes a lady psychiatrist in her fifties suddenly exclaimed that she hadn’t had this much fun since she was a child!
And this is exactly what I want to deliver; a space for you to rediscover just how much fun it is to create something with your own hands!
Ceramic Owls
Published November 4, 2009
I’m sitting in my garden under a huge full moon listening to Tawny owls. They are so loud and there are so many of them and I wonder what they are up to.
The night is warm despite it being late autumn, and I’m drinking a glass of wine. I’m thinking about Marija Gimbutas books on archeomythology and how she found that owls were already during paleolithic times considered to be symbols of death and regeneration. The Great Goddess would often be depicted as an owl or a vulture. I’m thinking that someone living 30.000 years ago would have been sitting in the warm autumn night just like me; looking up at the moon, sipping wine, listening to the Owls and feeling slightly spooked.
The picture shows a gang of Little Owls made of clay and just about to go into the kiln. I don’t think they are spooky but they certainly have an attitude. I am not sure how to glaze them yet, but I think they will be smoke fired just like my Fat Birds.
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