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| Claire Locker |
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I have spent the past thirty years as a potter travelling Australia and the globe – combining studio work, exhibitions, lecturing and academic teaching in ceramics. I moved to the Mudgee region of NSW some ten years ago and I found my creative spirit expanding and reproducing itself into “my dancing ceramic forms.”
I enjoy the unconfined spaces and earthiness that is the essence of rural living and this is reflected in my works. The simplicity of country living has translated itself to my ceramic forms giving them a flowing strength and style.
I don’t have a great plan when I sit at my wheel – it evolves from my moods and thoughts and takes gentle shape flowing softly from my muddy hands.
Tactile, soft and feminine shapes appear – it is the very essence of me – soft edges, balance and form. I love to make soft slab tableware that will be used and add beauty to everyday living. I often see the female form in my many pieces of functional tableware. I don’t drink tea – but my forms always seem to have a handle and a spout – making pieces and putting them together – teapots – I have made hundreds of them over the years – feeding my desire for balance and form.
I throw the form and then I mould gentle curves from thin textured “Paper Clay” which lightens in appearance and accentuates the female form. I texture the slabs by rolling them, pleating them, folding them until I get the shape I want. I thin the clay sometimes to only 2mm and then I thicken it in parts, stressing it to the limits – a challenge to get the clay to dry and hold.
I look at the piece and by creating light and shade through many applications of glazes and slips – I create depth and dynamics to the finished form. Spraying pigments and coloured underglazes – I glaze in reverse.
Multiple firings until the form is just the right texture and colour sometimes, four or five firings.
I enjoy the ruggedness of some of the glaze effects, giving me thin and thicker glaze highlights – firing the glaze – always a surprise – always a delight!
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