Shaun Hall's Raku Ceramics Blogspot

I thought I'd take stock of some of my pots at the weekend, with a view to pressing on and making some new work in the run up to .......(Christmas)-say it quietly! Summer proved a bit of a revelation sales wise- probably the best certainly since the recession kicked in - so maybe things are turning a corner. I've been doing all my usual regular supplies of Gallery stuff to   Buckenham   Galleries  (Southwold) and the  Taplin Gallery (Woodbridge). I'm also stocking work at Quirky Art in Denbeighshire, Wales. These days I get as many enquiries from online galleries as I do from "physical" galleries. The most notable that I sell on are Studio Pottery.co.uk and for me, at any rate- Rippingham Art. It's the way of things I suppose these days. It is sad not to exhibit in a real space for sure and to get to know the owners and proprietors- but there you go. Both Stephen Dee of Studio Pottery and Jan Rippingham though, have been really friendly, helpful and sup

I've just had the scare of my working life! Last weekend I made some repairs to the firebricks in my electric top-loading kiln. The fire-cement was quite wet, but I 've done these repairs before.... however not with a new RCD circuit and trip switch fitted onto the house. The problem started on Sunday- I dried the cement out on Saturday- or so I thought- by placing an electric heater inside the kiln. Sunday- the kiln clicked once- then tripped off all the power. And kept doing it- OVER AND OVER AGAIN!   Disaster! I got Essex Kilns in, they asked if the fire cement was still wet. No I replied it's all dry. And yes it was touch dry- or so it seemed.  Out they come- "N othing wrong with the kiln mate-there's a small leak of  electricity onto the casing- makes it trip. Up the millampage from 30-100 that'll sort it and get it put on a separate RCD circuit.Bob's yer uncle."    Well with the prospect of hundreds of pounds of work looming, it made me s

I 've been busy editing photos of some of the pots from my last firing batch. I tend to mull over  the fired pots  for a couple of days then bubble-wrap them and carefully store them away. I tend to divide them into quality bands- the best -medium grade- and seconds (ebayers etc). Anyway I just edited up this little gem. It has no buyers yet- nor an exhibition as yet to make an appearance in. He's quite happy in my small display case at home! Gold copper mattes are pretty rare in my experience - I used to get a lot in my early days- when I fired to a lower temperature. This was an attempt to try and re- achieve gold and it worked .   It also developed vivid copper red/pink/blue tones. It's a pretty rare piece.   Take a good look - I doubt I'll get another one like it  - probably for another ten years!