Transylvania Jewelry Festival
'Mud'
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I'm excited to have been invited to exhibit at @transylvania_jewelry_festival
The second edition of Transylvania Jewelry Festival will take place 07 - 17 October 2026 in Cluj Napoca, Romania. . . . These pieces are totally new work created for the festival .... made from clay I dug up along with stones, mining waste & ash glaze made during the Waste Materials and Wood Firing course I went to at Brickfield with Rosanna Martin (links below) The main body of these pieces were reduction fired in their amazing wood kiln and they include the remains of nails eaten by the flames ... I learnt that during a reduction firing the flame strips oxygen atoms away from any available source, including the metallic oxides within the clay, glazes, and any metal objects inside the kiln |
This years theme in Transylvania is 'In Every time & In Everywhere' ... and this is my response ....
Mud We all stand on it it is under our feet, squelches through our toes, gets on our knees when we fall and cushions us Mud ... it is universal! It is something that we all have encountered - in every part of the world ... most of us on a daily basis .. if not directly then definitely under the paths upon which we walk (or holding the coffee that we drink!) But do we think Mud is beautiful? Do we imagine it can be something different than the muddy puddles and piles which we have knowledge of? Are we even prepared to wear it on our coats and round our necks ? Well ... I dug it up! I mixed it with other foraged found things ... rocks, nails, sand, mining waste and water I also made some of it glossy and glassy ... who would have thought that some wood ash and some bits of stone would make a beautiful blue or pink glossy glassy glaze! Well it did ... and now will you wear it?... this universal piece of mud! |
The Role of Colour in this work & it's effect on my making
I make stuff because I can't not.
It is fundamental to who I am.
It is what I do ... and have always done ... never really questioning why.
It is a thing that one moment has me standing emotionally on top of the world ...
On the highest mountain ...
Then the next moment finds me sitting at the bottom of the deepest ocean trench.
It is the emotional journey of making that is the most important part, often more than the thing that is finally created.
But ...equal to this ... is that of my emotional reaction to colour.
It is an almost physical reaction of intense joy.
If the sky is a colourless empty grey ... one that I often find myself actually breathing and enveloped in where I live
(on top of a hill and almost continually in a dense cloud of fog) ...
Then being creative is a struggle.
It is a colour thing!
... and these pieces ... they are not brightly coloured ...
they are not the neon jumping popping colours of my previous painting practice ...
But a strong, all consuming gun metal grey and oxide black ... alongside the flash of a vibrant blue, a pink shine or a glassy deep speckled green ... that you may or may not be able to see in the also very dark photos !
Colours created from various wood ashes, granite dust and water ...(who would have thought !!!)
Colour created from wild clay and mining waste dug up by my own fingers ...
Colour created from the landscape that contains the colour that affects me on a daily basis and ultimately what I make
... and whether I CAN make.
These colours are integral to what these pieces actually are and how they were made during a firing ...
That fire which raged red, yellow, orange, white and pink ...
Intense flames that contrasted against the very black smoke when the monstrous wood kiln was at it's full hungry reduction stage ...
The colour and the emotion was intense.
The metallic nails that were eaten by the oxygen starved flames who consumed any O2 they could eat during this method of firing;
stripping oxygen atoms away from any available source; including the metallic oxides within the clays, the glazes and any metal
objects they could find inside the kiln.
These colours who glow in the sun and shine when you move them; do not sit on top of the individual elements within the
work ....
They run through them ...
They are made of them ...
They ARE the colour.
It is fundamental to who I am.
It is what I do ... and have always done ... never really questioning why.
It is a thing that one moment has me standing emotionally on top of the world ...
On the highest mountain ...
Then the next moment finds me sitting at the bottom of the deepest ocean trench.
It is the emotional journey of making that is the most important part, often more than the thing that is finally created.
But ...equal to this ... is that of my emotional reaction to colour.
It is an almost physical reaction of intense joy.
If the sky is a colourless empty grey ... one that I often find myself actually breathing and enveloped in where I live
(on top of a hill and almost continually in a dense cloud of fog) ...
Then being creative is a struggle.
It is a colour thing!
... and these pieces ... they are not brightly coloured ...
they are not the neon jumping popping colours of my previous painting practice ...
But a strong, all consuming gun metal grey and oxide black ... alongside the flash of a vibrant blue, a pink shine or a glassy deep speckled green ... that you may or may not be able to see in the also very dark photos !
Colours created from various wood ashes, granite dust and water ...(who would have thought !!!)
Colour created from wild clay and mining waste dug up by my own fingers ...
Colour created from the landscape that contains the colour that affects me on a daily basis and ultimately what I make
... and whether I CAN make.
These colours are integral to what these pieces actually are and how they were made during a firing ...
That fire which raged red, yellow, orange, white and pink ...
Intense flames that contrasted against the very black smoke when the monstrous wood kiln was at it's full hungry reduction stage ...
The colour and the emotion was intense.
The metallic nails that were eaten by the oxygen starved flames who consumed any O2 they could eat during this method of firing;
stripping oxygen atoms away from any available source; including the metallic oxides within the clays, the glazes and any metal
objects they could find inside the kiln.
These colours who glow in the sun and shine when you move them; do not sit on top of the individual elements within the
work ....
They run through them ...
They are made of them ...
They ARE the colour.
