a domani

Groundtruthing Project December 2007 to April 2009 has ended.

A new project will start elsewhere, before too long. Ci vediamo.

Yellow patch

porcelain

The seasonal stream of Yellow-faced Honeyeaters heading north north-east began three weeks ago. In the last few days, as it was this morning, the aerial passage has increased to large liquid flocks of up to 50 and more moving through all day. By mid morning, many hundreds have passed overhead, a visual and aural procession of tiny birds calling in ephemeral, fluttering lines.

In the past few days, Golden Whistlers have also moved into the farm area's remnant patches and corridors of cover. Males, in crisp bright yellow, black and white plumage, lay out full vocal repertoires from high branches in the still-warm mid-April sun. It is likely this is another seasonal movement from higher altitudes and more southerly areas as the autumnal chill descends. I listen to them, a surround-sound of complex vocal confidence and subtlety, through an open studio door.

The upland air is still and cloudless this morning, but an overlay of avian fluidity draws shifting lines across all dimensions, physical and temporal, like the higher altitude jet contrails of white against the upper deep-blue chamber of atmosphere.

porcelain

En route to London

One porcelain vessel en route from the old Woonjeegaribay Highlands to the old city of London. The gathering called Collect 2009: The International Art Fair for Contemporary Objects, is taking place at Saatchi Gallery, London from May 15 to 17.

Accumulating light again, approaching rain

March 21, before 10 am, before

From Frederic Wood Jones

Porcelain, bone china, glaze 2007

From Fred Wood Jones 1923 -1925, Adelaide, South Australia, and a side note: Wood Jones, an Englishman, was appointed to the Chair of Anatomy at the University of Adelaide in 1919,

"Only a few years ago this animal was extremely common over the greater part of South Australia. Twenty years ago the dealers in Adelaide did a great trade in selling them at about ninepence a head for coursing on Sunday afternoons. It may surprise people who remember those days to know that there is not a preserved specimen, of even a skin of the animal, available ... in South Australia today.

They were wonderfully nimble animals, and Krefft records seeing one get over a close palisade fence 8 ft. in height; but they were not very fast, and were easily caught, even by "common dogs".

Heads, 2009

monday morning

Atherton, Queensland, June 

Ceramics and carbon dioxide 1

Carbon accounting and accountability: a rolling theme for a ceramicist making the 'non essential' and 'more than the essential'. Not a new consideration for a maker by any stretch, but one that might now be regarded as integral to making as any other material use in 2009. What one does each year - those reduction and offset actions, local, immediate and geographically removed - needs refining and enhancing. At the minimum, can one's total studio practice, integrated with the rest of daily life, be truly carbon neutral?

. A New Zealand perspective

. Emissions calculation: one assessment amongst many: Greenfleet

. UK: Carbon Trust

. One of the most erudite pieces of recent Australian writing on the broader subject, with much useful background explanation: Tim Flannery

Copperhead and ash

Highlands Copperhead, crossing lane, Feb 23, mid-afternoon

Porcelain beaker, Woonjeegaribay, January, photographed February

Light rain

Light and heavy falls have visited for the past 10 days. It is cool - 11, 13, 14 C. Very unlike February, and very like seasonal change. I wonder. All has gone from bush fire edge to soggy ground. Mud wasps have disappeared, Gang-Gang cockatoos are conspicuously silent in their recent absence, and close-up bird life very subdued. I have returned the horse to our neighbour; the tall flowering grasses have been grazed and wettened beyond house threat. The news from the north is of controlling mildew after weeks of monsoonal rain. 

 

light+porcelain 2

porcelain two: 2006 and 2009

inlaid porcelain detail

With ongoing thoughts of those who lived through the fire storms of Victoria, February 7, 2009.

Liscannor five

Liscannor five, 2008

Southern Ice porcelain

Mauro Baranzini

Mauro Baranzini 2008

Mauro Baranzini, Chair of the Economics Faculty, University of Lugano, Switzerland. 

Woonjeegaribay small

Southern Ice porcelain 2004-8

North of here, south of there

2006-9

atmosphere 2009:1

light+porcelain 2009:1

Heatwave conditions have hit the Woonjeegaribay highlands over the past four days. Now, a temperature plunge of more than 20 degrees C with a southerly change bringing cloud, wind and rain. Firing a gas kiln in outside temperatures in the high 30's seems as ludicrous as it is difficult to reach high stoneware temperatures. It takes more time, burns more gas, emits more CO2 and other gases, and is exhausting in the heat. I have never owned an electric kiln, and never will; one does not need be concerned by the ambient world: program it, turn it on and head for the cool. Daily I am challenged to think about making ceramics, and how I do it in the context of the 21st century.

Shards of the present

austral porcelain 2006-09

Welcome 2009. The run of time to jump into.