Curriculum Vitae
Demonstrations & Workshops
1992
European Festival of Ceramics, Dorset
A
weekend of lectures and demonstrations by six internationally diverse
potters.
1993
7th International Ceramics Conference, Belgium
A weekend of lectures and demonstrations by three
potters, from France , Britain and Belgium.
1986-2007 Art in Action, Waterperry House, Oxfordshire
An annual event lasting four days where 150 craftspeople talk to the
public and demonstrate their skills.
1994
`Earth and Fire`, Rufford Ceramics Centre, Nottinghamshire
A weekend ceramic fair including demonstrations by participants.
1995
Scottish Potters, Pitlochrie, Scotland
A weekend of lectures and workshops.
1999
West Dean College, Sussex
A weekend masterclass based on smoke firing techniques and sculpture
making. (See review below).
1993 - 1998
Visiting tutor in various Art School Ceramic Departments.
Review, by Caroline Pearce - Higgins, of Masterclass held at West
Dean College
LONDON POTTERS NEWSLETTER (No. 76 , April 2000)
Antonia Salmon led a weekend workshop at West Dean's College's Master
Potter Series last December, the latest in a series of Masterclasses
which have included Jim Robison, David Leach and Takeshi Yasuda.
Antonia is well known for her finely balanced sculptural forms with
their archaic associations emphasised by subtle burnished and smoke-fired
surfaces. In her Masterclass, Antonia shared two aspects of her work:
her burnishing and smoking-firing techniques, and her approach to the
exploration of form.
The Masterclass started after supper on Friday evening with an illustrated
lecture on Antonia's work and her influences and sources. She herself
was inspired by the 'quality of feeling' in a wide variety of forms
and images, many of them drawn from the year she spent studying in the
Middle East and India. She felt that most artists are preoccupied with
a small number of themes or ideas throughout their lives and in her
case these are connected with the tension of opposites: for example,
between stillness and movement within a single piece, or between a controlled
form and the haphazard occurring from smoking.
On Saturday morning we started playing with the techniques. Our smoke-firing
experiments were prepared, beginning with a frenzy of activity of decorating
the biscuited pots and pieces brought by each student with oxides, copperwire,
clay pads (to mask off certain areas) and any organic material people
might have brought to experiment with. These were carried in boxes to
the site in the grounds where four sawdust kilns had been built. Each
one was filled up with a different type of sawdust (eg. White hard wood,
American Cherry) as the pots were placed in layers. In some cases salt,
lavender, pine cones or more colouring oxides were added to the kiln.
Notes were kept for each kiln. As the rain continued to pour down the
sawdust was set alight and the covers put on.
Back in the pottery, Antonia went through the detailed notes on smoke-firing
that she handed out, which covered different types of wood and grades
of sawdust, decorating with oxides, resist techniques and ended with
notes on the weather !
The following morning Antonia gave a demonstration of burnishing and
talked about the process which 'is not just a surface but affects the
whole of the form' and can be done in several stages, allowing for dying
off in between. She uses mainly cheap plastic modelling tools for this
purpose. Texture can be added eg. Relief carving, combing which can
also be burnished across for extra variety and to round off sharper
edges. Antonia also talked about the use of slips and terrasigillata.
She finishes her pieces with a wax polish using a liquid floor polish.
The sawdust kilns were opened around lunch time on Sunday and contained
some wonderful successes and surprises as well as the inevitable burnt
offerings ( which included my pieces). The information Antonia provided
opened up a world of richness and subtlety in what appear to be 'simple'
techniques and showed that they were capable of being developed as sophisticated
vehicles for personal expression, as her work so clearly demonstrates.
The other aspect of Antonia's Masterclass which was even more fascinating
for me was her approach to designing and making. Saturday afternoon
and most of Sunday were spent on exploring new ways of working with
clay. Antonia had brought exercises to help us move away from old habits
and come into closer contact with our hands and our feelings. We began
with a 'felt sense' exercise where we tried to feel the impact of certain
words or ideas on our feelings and in our bodies. This was followed
by some quick drawings during which we tried to sense the pressure of
the pencil or charcoal moving across the paper, keep a connection with
the feeling we had for what we were looking at and not to worry about
the result ! We then were invited to pick out two slips of paper with
a word written on each one and to express one or both of them in clay.
In this process we explored the 'felt sences' relating to these words,
and tried to play, explore and be open to doing things differently 'without
any pressure or expectation of creating a great piece of work' ! From
these maquettes. We went on to develop one piece on a larger scale,
considering its formal elements and relating it to possible smoke effects
as we worked.
The weekend ended with a review in which each participant put out their
work on the bench and spoke about what they had learned and what had
been of particular value for them. Antonia was presented with a large
striped West Dean umbrella, as a gesture of thanks from the group and
in the hope that it would ward off rain on her next visit to the College
! It had been a very special experience for all of us and we had blossomed
in the liberating atmosphere created by Antonia's poise and gentleness.
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