Finally...Self (States of Change)

I'm really sorry to have kept my regular readers in suspense for soooooooooooo long about the outcome of my last firing. Thankfully all went well and I set about binding the pages. Well, sort of. Once I had the pages in my hands, I wasn't sure about the original binding I had planned.

Originally I thought I would make an accordian book, using a simple technique explained by Julie Leonard in the Penland Book of Handmade Books. This would involve gluing book fabric to form hinges between the porcelain pages. Somehow seeing the pages made me feel something a little more elaborate might be better, so I did some more research and selected another technique by Julie Leonard.

Below you can see that the technique is a variant of the same method. The pages are framed in windows, allowing both the front and the back to be visible, and then hinged in much the same way.

Images from: Penland Book of Handmade Books, p.217
Published by Lark Books, 2004.
All rights remain with them.

Still this did not feel quite right. It dawned on me that I was enjoying playing with the pages and putting them together in different ways. This also opens up the meaning of the series, and allows for the images to be read as both disintegration and reconstruction. I think this reading is a lot more hopeful, and also realistic. I don't see life as a linear path, but much more of a spiralling journey, where we retrace ground, spend time ruminating and re-hashing, and slowly move on.




You can see the full range of pages on my Flickr page, here.

Adding the decals

Thought you might be interested to see what the decals look like before they are fired...don't worry, they won't be yellow afterwards.


I fired them yesterday and now have to wait for the kiln to cool down. I have to admit I'm sending up frequent invocations to the kiln goddess - I'm feeling really quite stressed about it as this is my first decal firing. The application has to be done with great care to make sure that any air or water bubbles are removed. When I did the test firing I didn't manage it, so this time I took a lot more care but I still don't know how they'll turn out. I would usually do another test, but I'm running a bit short of time. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Three Porcelain Pages...

....sitting in the sun

Some of the pages awaiting decals. These are for the concertina book (not the flag book obviously)*. They've been fired, polished, and then re-fired to 1280 deg C and are now translucent, as you can see. The decals should arrive later this week, so by this time next week I hope to have fired them.

* Sorry if I'm confusing you with mixing posts on the two books, the flag book and the concertina book. I am working on them in tandem because there are periods when I have to wait while things are drying. It makes sense it have two projects on the go at once to improve efficiency.