I took a large 8Ft stainless steel ring to Aberystwyth and a whole load of what I would describe as clay doughnuts! These were simple rings of clay, made out of all my old scrap clay, to which I added wood bark and crushed glass and put through my old pug mill. These were then bisque fired with a coating of black copper oxide, manganese dioxide and an alkaline frit. We made about 180 of these and were determined to finish the sculpture over the two day festival.
We were given a great space to work in, a good spot for the ring and some very enthusiastic helpers.
My first job was to demonstrate building a simple cheap kiln. This meant that we had two kilns to work with and we managed to get in about 15 firings over the two days. Each firing turned out to be quite different with temperatures ranging from 950c right up to 1200c!
With lots of input from willing students and visitors we managed to finish the sculpture at 4pm on the Sunday afternoon.
I have now erected the sculpture at my workshop at Wellow Trekking Center. I am setting it up with a water pump and will run it for a while to make sure it all works well. I am also experimenting with some lighting....all exciting stuff.