A tale of two rivers – Exploring glazes

A tale of two rivers and exploring glazes

My journey with the element of Water continues, upon arriving at Laima Ceramics, I discover the nearest town Bauska is located at the confluence of where two rivers meet, the Mūsa and Mēmele (possibly derived from German, or directly from Old Prussian in which it is thought to mean “surrounded by water”) and then form the Lielupe River (which in Latvian literally means Large River). This was an invitation for me to go meet these rivers and the spirits of this place, clearly again shaped by water! 

Walking along their banks I was struck by how little blue colour there was in the landscape. Before starting this residency, I had no sense on what I should explore during my month here, only when I arrived did I realise that the natural response would the process of glazing, whose key ingredient was always water. So I busily hurried myself looking at existing blue glazes in glaze recipe books, and on existing fired pieces in the studio that overtly spoke of water in its most obvious form and coloration. Only when meeting the landscape did I come across the palette of colours that this area speaks through. The only blue specks of colour was to be found in human debris, broken shards of glass that lay intermingled with fishing line and polystyrene fragments, alongside gentler soft powder pink patinas, rusted iron pebbles with ancient stories, slate grey and evacuated mussel shells, rustling river reed green and damp moss. They all spoke of another story, one much more gentle and unassuming in her colouring. And so I met with both rivers, one softly gurgling her way to the meeting point, the other fierce and directed in her movement. I could sense the latter was more where my energies were having arrived in Latvia, a little cold and overly forceful in my expectations of what I should create during my time here. I took these different currents as an invitation to again go with the flow, and adopt nature’s pace, and take the gentler route of unfolding,