MaKe=Bespoke Designs and/or Marni California

Gwen John

2007-01-24T19:16:00.000Z

'Gwen John'. 2 feet high. New white crank, coiled and pinched, underglazes, transparent glaze, fired to 1060 C. The word 'Rodin' filled in with gold enamel paint.

Mwynhau

2007-01-24T19:11:00.000Z

'Mwynhau (Enjoy)'. 18", new white crank, coiled & pinched. Underglazes & transparent glaze, fired to 1060 C.

Blue Queen

2007-01-24T19:04:00.000Z

'Blue Queen', 12". New white crank, coiled, pinched and sgraffitoed. Underglazes and transparent glaze, fired to 1060 C.

Wales: Landscapes & Moments (MaKe)

2006-12-16T12:17:00.000Z

'Barkby Beach (Janice & Marni)', KD, watercolour on paper

'Pensarn Beach II', KD, oil on canvas

'Croeso i Gymru I', MC, watercolour on paper

'Pensarn Beach I', KD, oil on canvas

'Final Furlong' (from a photograph by Ruth D. Harris), MC, watercolour on paper

'Snowdonia Mist', KD, watercolour on paper

'Arthur Cambrensis', MC, watercolour on paper

'Foryd Boat', KD, pastel on paper

MaKe's "Landscapes & Moments" Exhibition 2006

2006-12-08T16:30:00.000Z

(l-r. Kev, Will, Doctor Atomic)

Meet the D-Team: (l.-r.) Phil, Marni, William, Ken, and Brenda (thanks to everyone for their help hanging us ;o)

Rob Zombee™ (The Movie)

2006-12-03T14:41:00.000Z

I know this guy, Rob Zombee. Cultured, erudite, a great writer, and funny as fuck. He's recently taken up painting, so I wished to 'immortalise' him as the 19th century gentleman-artist that he really is. Rock on, ace!

'Hock Star'

2006-11-08T18:12:00.000Z

'Celt', 16" x 12", watercolour on paper, 2006
Painting of Dilwyn Roberts's Welsh Cob, from photographs by Kev Doidge, Llangernyw, North Wales

Wales: Landscapes and Moments Exhibition. 9 December 2006 to 13 January 2007

2006-09-27T16:59:00.000Z

MaKe will be having their first joint exhibition at Rhyl Art Gallery entitled 'Wales: Landscapes & Moments', from 9 December 2006 to 13 January 2007.

For more information including how to get there please click on:

Rhyl Library, Museum, and Art Centre, North Wales

'Final Furlong'

2006-09-24T18:56:00.000Z

Watercolour and gouache on paper, 18" x 14", 2006

from a photograph by Ruth S. Harris

'I Wish I'd Been There' (2005)

2006-09-07T00:39:00.000Z

Earthenware shallow bowl, oxides and transparent glazes, 13" diameter

To People In The U.S. Who Aren't Sure Where Wales Is (And Probably Couldn't Find Their Own Arse With Both Hands)

2006-08-26T13:22:00.000Z

To find out, click here

Marni California, Rhuddlan Castle, 2004

2006-08-25T14:28:00.000Z

Photograph (c) The Dude (Richie)

Having been married and divorced, and not being entirely fond of my maiden name, I have decided to give myself an artist's name. This is partly in the Welsh tradition. The early Welsh did not have surnames and were known as 'the son/daughter of' - as in my mother's maiden name Bowen, which means 'son of Owen'. It was the English who gave the Welsh surnames. To this day they are known more intimately by either their occupations, or their origins, as with our good friend Dylan Llangernyw, Llangernyw being the village in which he was born. This is when he is in Abergele. In Llangernyw he has yet another surname entirely....

So I am Marni California. Thus I tell my friends where my origins (San Francisco) lie; remind myself in my adopted country of my background, of which I am proud; and killing three birds with one stone, California is Spanish for 'hot oven', which is also a clue to my occupation: artist and potter.

Making Process, Bolan (2004)

2006-08-25T12:05:00.000Z

'Bolan', 20" x 24" x 8" (50cm x 60cm x 20cm), 2004 (Artist's Collection)

I created a slightly larger than life-size ceramic head of Marc Bolan, the T. Rex singer, in 2003-2004, when my boyfriend, ill with colitis, was given a 3-CD set of the band's hits, and I discovered Bolan's brilliant voice for the first time.

I had been working on a bust of Joan of Arc, inspired by the Leonard Cohen song; this is the pictorial progression of what most likely wasn't the first and probably won't be the last sex-change in ceramics.

The whole process of making Bolan's head took over a year. My lecturer at present, the very talented Willie Carter of Wick, has taught me how to make heads of this size in a little over a fortnight. This will come in handy should I turn my work into commodity.

Joan of Arc (above), not looking particularly happy. She's made from college clay, a cheap clay which can be fired to either earthenware or stoneware temperatures. I started her in the summer of 2003.

The first of Bolan. I didn't have many pictures to work from at the time, and his hair was always going to be a problem (solved by making sheets of clay I then 'waved' into curls and pressed into place with slurry), so I considered myself quite fortunate to have come up with his likeness, as seen in profile here:

(Photograph on left taken from Marc Bolan, Wise Publications, London, 1992.)

If your modem works fast enough to download large photographs, you can click on the above picture to see where thin individual curls have been wrapped in clingfilm to keep them from drying quicker than the rest of the hair, and later cracking off. In fact most of the photos on this post are available in these larger sizes so that you can see detail clearly.

Bolan's head was then painted in white slip and bisque-fired to 1000 degrees C:

Now for the fun part! Various underglaze pigments and oxides, some available at my college (whose supplier is Potclays), some I bought myself from Potters' Connection, were mixed with hot water dropped from a bulb syringe of the type used for slipware. Using photographs of Bolan for guidance, I began to paint.

Finished with painting, the head was now ready for spraying of a transparent earthenware glaze, pretty basic recipe, and final firing. I'm afraid I can't give the temperature of the firing as up until now my college course (a BA Hons degree) hasn't given us kiln training! The kiln wasn't available for my work so my lecturer that year, Mr. Terry Bell-Hughes, fired it for me in his own kiln; otherwise my pieces wouldn't have been ready for final assessment.

The shock was yet to come - notice the difference between the painted oxides and the final finish after firing. It took me some weeks to actually like the finished product, which as part of my third year was hung in an exhibition, Off the Wall, at Bangor Museum and Art Gallery, North Wales.*

here.)

Me checking the hanging 'Bolan' on the wall at the Museum, June, 2004.

The picture of 'Bolan' which appeared in the year-end issue of Ceramic Review 210, Nov/Dec 2004.

First Acrylic

2006-08-06T13:59:00.000Z

Some days you're the guy on the left, and some days you're the guy on the right. Will Lefty recover? Will Righty have mercy? Appearances can be deceiving.... not to mention a pain in the arse to keep up.

'Ring', Acrylic on board, 14" x 18"

Majolica Experiment, 2006

2006-06-16T14:53:00.000Z

An experiment in majolica, and detail (below)

This piece had a mind of its own from start to finish. The broken arms came about as a happy accident and said more about Miss Kahlo (and artists in general) than the paintings I intended to glaze on her skirt and corset. I'm told now that I must begin to 'read' my own work. Even when I was a published short-story writer I found it impossible to read my own work. I'm never sure exactly what it's about and that's what I like best next to the happy accidents: eternal mystery.

'A Whistling Leopard Is Up To No Good', 2006

2006-06-12T14:03:00.000Z

Ah, finally a piece has come out the way I intended - and only after four years of study! But worth every minute/moment/howl of frustration.

'Croeso i Cymru', 2005

2006-06-12T00:43:00.000Z

Croeso i Cymru: 'Welcome to Wales', 2005

For now I seem to paint things mostly to do with sport, and portraits. Movement fascinates me; faces are maps to worlds I can never inhabit, but only guess about.