3 Solo Shows - Jennie Hale, Alison Blant & Sue Brown 3 Solo Shows - Jennie Hale, Alison Blant & Sue Brown
3 Solo Shows - Jennie Hale, Alison Blant and Sue Brown
1st November 2003 - 17th January 2004


Jennie Hale

Jennie Hale


Since 1986, Jennie Hale has worked exclusively in raku developing her own style. She has been passionately interested in the natural world since childhood and utilises animals and birds as her source material. Jennie studies animals in their natural habitat, in study centres and zoos observing their behaviour, form and character from life.

"I am an observer. Hours and days are spent in silence, collecting feathers and other clues, votives of my fascination. My greatest pleasure is when patience is rewarded and there before me are the creatures I delight in.
Foxes criss-crossing through woodland or leaping cat-like, fore feet together, on some unseen quarry.
Badgers clattering through dead leaves; red deer standing on hind legs to reach succulent leaves, elegantly comic, huge bellied and slender legged; the list goes on and on.......
those moments of pleasure, awe and at times excrutiating discomfort are all stored, revisited, then shared with many people through my work.
Comic, fierce and tender manifestations of a lifelong passion."



Extracts from Jennie's "Nature Diaries"
These preliminary research drawings are then worked on to produce a design in order to make the transformation into clay.
Starting from a slab base each piece is handbuilt using coils, gradually building up the form. To allow one piece to stiffen before adding another, two or three pieces are worked on at the same time. The form is developed by "paddling" and scraping and compressing before smoothing with a rubber kidney. Detail is added using a combination of blobs, slabs and coils of clay. An assortment of rubber tubing, pipes and various oddments are sometimes pushed into the clay for other fine details. The shape of the mouth, fur and feathers are drawn on a piece with a scriber and holes are pierced through to make nostrils.

When dry the work is decorated using wax resist, underglaze and oxide before biscuit firing in an electric kiln. Glaze is sprayed onto the biscuited ware and the pieces are raku fired in a "top-hat" kiln.
The kiln has been made to Jennie's design from an oil drum lined with ceramic fibre, there is a counterweight so that it can be lowered when the pieces are in place on the base and safely lifted away when the firing is finished. The pieces are drawn red hot from the kiln and smoked in a bin of saw dust. When cold they are cleaned up with water and a scrubbing cloth, the waxed and incised lines hold the carbon, giving the quality of ink or pencil drawing, whilst the crackled glaze represents the texture of fur, feathers or scales. Because of the arduous nature of this process only a few pieces can be fired each day.



Above "Tiger"



Top and Bottom Left
Images of the exhibition

 

Click on the links below to find out more about the exhibitors in "3 Solo Shows"

© The Craft Centre & Design Gallery, City Art Gallery, The Headrow, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS1 3AB, England. Tel: (0113)2478241
Open Tuesday - Friday 10.00 - 17.00 and Saturday 10.00 - 16.00. Please call the gallery to check opening times over Bank Holidays.
Additional Opening Times 1st - 24th December 2003 Mon - Sat 10.00 - 17.00 and Sun 11.00 - 16.00