Images from Cockenzie Harbour installation

Michael Wolchover, www.michael-wolchover.com took some excellent images for me during the installation and during a high tide.Piece is now safely down, thanks to help from Yvonne Murphy and friends from 3 Harbours Festival.
It will next be seen at Pittenweem Art Festival from 5th to 14th August, as part of  Flashcraft Exhibition.  http://www.pittenweemartsfestival.co.uk/index.html

AA2A work in progress at Sunderland

I have been working as part of Artist Access to Art Colleges programme at Sunderland University dept of Glass and Ceramics, at the National Centre for Glass. My recent trip down involved making some long bone form with layers of paperclay, porcelain and seaweed mixed together. These will dry slowly and then be fired and sandblasted to make erroded surfaces, before a final high temp firing.

PAPERCLAY- IN AN EXHIBITION AND AT EVENING CLASSES

There is an exhibition opening tomorrow at Craft House Concept, at 31E Minto St, Edinburgh, EH9 2BT, called 'Paper'.see www.livingwithcraft.com
I will be showing some porcelain paperclay vessels, amongst many other more obviously paper related objects from a wide selection of artists and makers.
I use paper pulp in the porcelain pieces I make so that the porcelain has a greater strength whist I am formimg the shapes. Porcelain is a beautifully smooth clay which is very soft but has little strength when dry and cracks very easlily when making. It is a messing and enjoyable process of combining liquid porcelain and torn up paper and water ( paper-mache style) and blending to a smooth paste befor drying out on plaster slabs. The result is a much easier to work material. The paper burns away in the first firing, leaving only the porcelain, and no trace of paper. Paperclay has been used over the last 20 years or so in ceramics and resolves a number of issues to do with fragility when making but not affecting the look of the final piece.
I run Organic Ceramic evening classes from my studio at Coburg House in Leith. Here students have the opprortunity to experience the whole process of making and using porcelain paperclay, as well as the regular clay. For more info please see http://www.coburghouseartstudios.co.uk/, new courses will start in the autumn, please e-mail me if you wish to be informed of next terms dates, info@jennypope.com below are examples of students work , done at previous classes.