Espace Kao

We are having a heat wave, so I am putting off firing for a couple of days. Maybe it's about time to look after other details, like this blog. Since the spring we have been super busy with a new ceramics gallery/shop in Val David, EspaceKao, in the old post office. We are a collective of 6 ceramic artists, all living and working in Val David or Val Morin. For the summer we have an exhibit of sculpture in stone by Jean Bisson Biscornet. He has for a theme birds and it is surprising how he captures the illusion of feathers in granite. Check out the Espace Kao blogspot for more. How did we find our name Kao? Well..... after much tossing around of ideas, we said lets just call it chaos in frustration and with a closer look, kao is the French pronunciation of chaos, kaolin is an ingredient in glazes and porcelain coming from the Chinese word for white mountains, as well as, chaos generally precedes creation, and I recently was told that the Chinese pictogram for chaos is the same as for opportunity. The past weeks have been a flurry of activity in the studio, I have been working with some new glazes all from the same base, all about half ash, and preparing for 1001pots that will start next week, [another reason to visit Val David]. Here are some of the new arrivals.

here is my first spring firing. We fired on Wednesday to unstack Friday morning. The weather was warm and it was so exciting to try out new pots and glazes. All the glazes are based on some local ingredient, sometimes all local ingredients. The ash is from our wood stove and the clays are from river beds or farm fields. This time I tried local ground stone to various levels of success. Alot had to be ground down and quite a few will be refired, but if you don't try, you never know. Allin all I am very encouraged by the results.