Ceramics International Festival: Wales. I was a volunteer for a week.
I really recommend it!
This is the early bird volunteers that I had the joy of being with and getting to know. Some students some working ceramicists.
Had a wonderful day doing this, we foot wedged with Mr Oh, who is a master potter from South Korea. We had to do it by foot because the pugmill was broken. It was much better this way! Mr Oh has been foot wedging for 20 years, its only the last 10 years of his career he decided to buy a machine to do it.
Ponimum's work is above, he was a very interesting chap from Indonesia, he is extremely kind and giving.
Above we have Bruno, a French Literature teacher who does evening courses in pottery at Aberystwth. He was our student coordinator, very caring and considerate.
He made this wonderful Dogu(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog%C5%AB) inspired sculptures and fired them in Seaweed.
Before going to the festival i was very interested by the glass bottle kiln, which I had seen in the Ceramic Review. However at the beginning of the festival i had few words with Karin Putsch-Grassi, but no opportunity to work with her. However later in the festival I did, due to an unforeseen accident.
SO i took part in building the beautiful bottle kiln with Karin, her husband Almando, their daughter Giada and another volunteer Carl Gray.
It was a great experience, looked wonderful and we celebrated with Italian wine and a sausage on the mini BBQ next to the kiln. It was also a perfect day and sunset. Wonderful weather in Wales.