Jill Symes
Jill Symes — 'Pinched #3' Sculptural Bowl, 2024
$360
Using mainly recycled clays and age-old handbuilding techniques of pinch, coil, slab and layer, these forms were spontaneously created, utilizing clays various, allowing the qualities of the clay and handbuilding methods to feature. Some of Jill's works are fired using a shallow in-ground pit, stacked with scrounged timbers and layers of sawdust plus some salt, until the fire (and pots) reached the desired heat colour (red/orange), turning the raw clay into ceramic, and colouring with the oxidising flame and reduction from the timbers and other combustible materials surrounding the pots. Others were saggar-fired in a gas kiln. Most of these forms were either sanded on the outside surface, or burnished several times as they dried, using a finely polished gemstone, before committing them to the fire.
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Jill Symes is a Melbourne-based ceramic artist producing a continuously developing body of ceramic vessels and sculptures which demonstrate developed hand-building skills and a mature understanding of the possibilities of earthenware clays and glazing techniques. Jill has been working with clay since the 1970’s, responding to the tactile qualities of the material to produce one off forms and sculptures by using handbuilding processes of pinch, coil and slab and layer.
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Material: saggar fired ceramic
Dimensions: approx. 10 x 121 x 12cm