Four ceramic pictures, all featuring Croagh Patrick or Clew Bay. They were made for the opening exhibition of our new Solas Louisburgh Upstairs Gallery.

A series of small dishes (for butter, or soap,or a large candle), some ash-glazed jun with  sgraffitto decoration through black slip, some wild splatter glazes, and one with a shiny high-silica cobalt glaze over a matt cobalt slip glaze with wax resist decoration.

For our new Solas Louisburgh Upstairs Gallery opening exhibition, we decided to show all new work by six local artists. The gallery is run by Jane Williams and me as a showcase/showroom for our work. The following photos are of the ceramic ash-glazed stoneware pictures I exhibited. Happily, some have already sold.

Here are photos of a few pieces from my latest earthenware “majolica” firing. Very pleasing results as the glaze and pigment both behaved, the kiln was obviously in a charitable mood, and the images all worked out well. Three commissioned  dishes. The wolfhound is a portrait of the recipients lovely dog, “Molly”.

Recently my stoneware spin on the tradition of “kraak” ware, Europe’s response to the Ming dynasty imported blue on white porcelains, has become a bit of an obsession. But intense decoration is fun to do, and, when the colours come right in the firing, very rewarding. Some of these plates are the ones which were exhibited in The Oxford Ceramics Gallery, as part of the “Michael Cardew and his Pupils” exhibition. Happily, three out of four sold at the opening in May.