Not a great deal of news as regards any update on my book-in-progress. However, I have been heartened to see that since creating this sister-site of the original version of ‘The Tapestry‘, the number of people dropping by to view my posts has increased by well over 200%. Thank you… hopefully they were not all by accident!
Chapter 11 has been going excruciatingly slow I am afraid and has coincided with a busy period at work after having returned some three weeks ago. Since that time my writing time has been scarce. In saying that, I have managed some 17 pages although I am far from happy with them for they contain several errors that crept in through ‘environmental distractions’.
With October nearing and the Korean ‘Chusok’ festival (as mentioned in my previous post), I hope to try and get Chapter 11 sewed up before next weekend. That will then allow me to make good use of the free time I will have in order to get stuff done. Maybe I’ll even get through a few extra chapters!
The photo’s you see here are from some clay-work I did a few months back at the Clayarch Ceramic Museum located in Gimhae (Busan, RoK). The region is historically the cradle of the Kaya civilisation (42-199 C.E.) and a birthplace of Gimhae earthenware. Gimhae was also once famous for its white porcelain and is regarded as the home of the tea bowl to the Japanese. Potters began settling in Gimhae, starting the ‘Gimhae Kiln’ in 1975, and about 100 pottery workshops are currently active in the district.
The clay was fantastic to use and while I didn’t have much time I made this face I have since roughly entitled ‘The Smiler’. It was intended to be a wall mask (and it can actually be used as such) with a Gothic-gargoyle flavour. Unfortunately, I had to leave my work behind for the staff to glaze and fire. Since there were a great many other designs that were being worked on that day, the glaze was not done very well
and so it has a very rushed appearance. Despite that, I am happy with it and I have since found it inspiring during my writing (as it sits watching me with that strangely amused look in its eyes).
I have been doing some other clay work and will probably post some of it at a later date (perhaps with some updated details on the aforementioned ‘Stonehammer’ project).
