Blog for TeachinArt online art school

Stories on clay - British artist, Gail Altschuler

12/16/2021

Gail Altschuler is a ceramic artist from South Africa, who works from her home/studio in North London, England, UK. She was one of the first online students of TeachinArt and completed the understanding porcelain e-course in August of 2014.

Drawing inspiration from sketchbook observations of life. Gail’s ceramic work is illustrated with her line drawings of people, plants and images from art history. "A picture says more than 1,000 words".

"I have done ceramics since the age of 15. I always loved working with clay, but I also wanted to learn to draw and paint and gain a substantial knowledge of art history.

So, I studied art and design, fine art and history of art. I teach drawing, painting and hand-built ceramics and I have owned a kiln for 13 years. I have worked with porcelain for four to five years now but with other stoneware and earthenware clays for a lot longer."

Building her pieces by hand, in porcelain she fires them to 1220ºC. The process involves using many graphic procedures, combing Mishima, inlay techniques, with sgraffito and coloured washes, all under a transparent glaze. Porcelain mimics the whiteness of paper revealing the crisp lines with a sharp, vividness that she enjoys.
Gail first became interested in ceramics while a school student. She studied Art and Design, Fine Art, History of Art and has an MA is Art and Design Education. She has taught ceramics, art and art history to adults, teens and children.

Gail worked with art curators and art consultants creating colourful abstract monoprint silkscreens for many years, which were used in hotels and offices. Her work is widely exhibited across the UK and abroad, including in Japan, the USA and South Africa.

“I aim to blur the lines between Fine Art and Ceramic Craft. I use clay and porcelain, as my canvas, creating sculptural slab-built vessels and illustrated plates. The themes include masks from different cultures, musicians, at the café, at the beach, at the Met
and conversations across time.” – Gail Altschuler

Recent Exhibitions
2021 Selected member of the Craft Potters Association
Selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
Exhibiting at Silson Contemporary Art, Harrogate
Exhibited at Fillingdon Fine Art High Wycombe
Selected for the ‘Figurative Art Now’, Mall Galleries, FBA, online exhibition

Links:
Understanding porcelain online workshop by Antoinette Badenhorst.
Online workshops at TeachinArt.

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Bone China by John Shirley

11/4/2019

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John Shirley is a ceramic artist from South Africa, who was selected as a member of the International Academy of Ceramics in 2010. Here is John in his own words.

John with his translucent work in South Africa

In 2000 while studying for my BTech in Ceramic Design I decided that I wanted to work in a translucent body (up until this time I had always worked with porcelain) but I wanted to try something I had not worked in previously.

It was then that I chose bone china as the medium I wanted to explore. This has really been an exciting journey and bone china is the body I still work with today.

The body is traditionally fluxed with bone ash and feldspar and stabilised with Kaolin. Fired to 1250C it produces a body of extreme whiteness and excellent translucency.

As a ceramist living in South Africa where the choice of raw materials is more limited and the quality is less regulated than in many other countries, I was determined to make a translucent body with local materials. This is where my choice to work with bone china really paid off. What I discovered is that the bone ash in the body acts as a bleach on any traces of iron present in the kaolin in the body. As the local kaolins are far from the extremely white kaolins available overseas this proved to be a real bonus.

Antoinette Badenhorst discussed the translucency of the porcelain and bone china soluble salts with John during her visit in Bryanston, South Africa

I started with the usual recipe of 50% bone ash, 25% Feldspar and 25% Kaolin which I made into a casting slip, as bone china is almost impossible to throw. Although my first results were not ideal they were very promising and I adjusted this first test. I tried many different kaolins. I changed from bone ash to tri-calcium phosphate which is synthetically produced. And within a few months arrived at a recipe that produced the results I was aiming for. With a few tweaks from time to time this is the recipe I still use today.

The body has a high shrinkage and a tendency to warp in the firing and although I have tried several ways to stabilize the body in the firing with various setters, I now accept the gentle warping produced by the firing as a part of the process.
Choosing to work with bone china for my work is I feel something that has worked really well for me and the work I produce with this body is quite different to any work I would have produced using the porcelain body I was using before.

Links:

Demonstrations, tips and techniques at TeachinArt
Click here for the video Antoinette interviews John Shirley
John Shirley website www.johnshirleyceramics.com
Antoinette's blog about difference between various kinds of porcelain

Tags:
#SouthAfricanartist #bonechina #JohnShirley #translucentporcelain #IAC

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Stories on clay - British artist, Gail Altschuler

Bone China by John Shirley

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