Art2Enchant
Artist’s Perspective:
North London Artist Jill Austin blends natural materials and hand built ceramics with the gentle healing energy of Reiki attuned crystals with to create mostly intuitive, elemental mixed media artworks. The opening words on her website, www.Art2Enchant.co.uk put it succinctly: Spirit Manifest; art for contemplation, for healing, for pleasure.
An artist, not technician, her work is flowing, sculptural, naturally inspired. As Leonardo Da Vinci said, "When the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art". Bernard Leach, influential ceramicist, believed work should speak to the soul. Jill’s fusion walks the path of these ideals, drawing you in, enchanting you, or so she has been told.
Form is her prerequisite, glaze, specialised ceramic media and natural elements like shells, are far more than “icing on the cake”. The play of space and light are core considerations, for example. The starting point is commonly a shamanic journey into “non-ordinary reality”. The muse takes the creative lead - or takes over - more often than the designer.
Both commissions and completed work you can buy direct are often mixed media. As Jill says, “Without my disabilities, I would not have journeyed regularly beyond day to day reality. If I had not been so injured, I may never have discovered or been able to express my creative soul’s purpose.”
North London Artist Jill Austin blends natural materials and hand built ceramics with the gentle healing energy of Reiki attuned crystals with to create mostly intuitive, elemental mixed media artworks. The opening words on her website, www.Art2Enchant.co.uk put it succinctly: Spirit Manifest; art for contemplation, for healing, for pleasure.
An artist, not technician, her work is flowing, sculptural, naturally inspired. As Leonardo Da Vinci said, "When the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art". Bernard Leach, influential ceramicist, believed work should speak to the soul. Jill’s fusion walks the path of these ideals, drawing you in, enchanting you, or so she has been told.
Form is her prerequisite, glaze, specialised ceramic media and natural elements like shells, are far more than “icing on the cake”. The play of space and light are core considerations, for example. The starting point is commonly a shamanic journey into “non-ordinary reality”. The muse takes the creative lead - or takes over - more often than the designer.
Both commissions and completed work you can buy direct are often mixed media. As Jill says, “Without my disabilities, I would not have journeyed regularly beyond day to day reality. If I had not been so injured, I may never have discovered or been able to express my creative soul’s purpose.”
I love the form of the seven leaflets on their sturdy stems of the umbrella tree plant (Schefflera Actinophylia). These danced on their stalks in the spring breeze as they dance here, a constant reminder of renewal and rebirth.
After the leaves had sizzled into smoke in the kiln, their imprints were lovingly painted, that they might live forever. Mostly clear glaze with just a touch of colour here and there covers them. As with all my work, this stands on little feet to ensure it doesn’t scratch the surface it’s stood on.
Materials: white stoneware, leaves, underglazes, two glazes, ceramic medium. Dimensions approximately 17.5” x 12 (450mm x 310).
To find out more, visit my website www.Art2Enchant.co.uk
After the leaves had sizzled into smoke in the kiln, their imprints were lovingly painted, that they might live forever. Mostly clear glaze with just a touch of colour here and there covers them. As with all my work, this stands on little feet to ensure it doesn’t scratch the surface it’s stood on.
Materials: white stoneware, leaves, underglazes, two glazes, ceramic medium. Dimensions approximately 17.5” x 12 (450mm x 310).
To find out more, visit my website www.Art2Enchant.co.uk
I thought I was making one thing and had cut and rolled flat a nice big oval to do just that. But when I began embellishing one side by turning the edge over, wings appeared all along the edge. I have accepted that the muse takes over and makes with and for me. No matter that I had designed something else, sketched it and thought I knew what I was making. How do I describe what takes over, speaking to me of earth power, when I do not hear words? It doesn’t matter where or when I am.
My knife cut away an oval and my landscape was gone as if I had never thought of it. In its place was a bird with a feathered tail.
When it came back from that first firing, I saw it again as if for the first time, stood at a distance and felt humbled. This is the stage of making at which some artworks make themselves known; I can start to see what I have made. Often before then I am lost in the detail elements of the work; inscribing, smoothing, perfecting the shape and flow, hardly conscious of the overall shape. When I looked at this, it was so full of power, true to its element, air.
Ego, I, is somehow not present when the muse takes over. I, Ego, has been overwhelmed so I may step out to journey into non ordinary reality. It seems to me to be very similar to the ‘hollow reed’ state where a Shaman practices healing work. Through that hollow reed comes something else.
I am moved by what I see as quintessentially creative, an emblem of happiness, brought into material being by my hand and eye. It is source of my sense of wonder and I call it child like because it is in its way a simple statement. Enchanting myself with it, it takes me away from pain towards my love of nature, without a thought in between.
Materials: red Scarva earthstone, lustre, three glazes (dark shiny blue, tin, shiny yellow), ceramic media (brown, black, petrol and sapphire bluse), gemstone Tiger’s Eye eyes. Fired to 1100°c. Dimensions: 19” x 17 (500mm x 450).
To find out more, visit my website www.Art2Enchant.co.uk
My knife cut away an oval and my landscape was gone as if I had never thought of it. In its place was a bird with a feathered tail.
When it came back from that first firing, I saw it again as if for the first time, stood at a distance and felt humbled. This is the stage of making at which some artworks make themselves known; I can start to see what I have made. Often before then I am lost in the detail elements of the work; inscribing, smoothing, perfecting the shape and flow, hardly conscious of the overall shape. When I looked at this, it was so full of power, true to its element, air.
Ego, I, is somehow not present when the muse takes over. I, Ego, has been overwhelmed so I may step out to journey into non ordinary reality. It seems to me to be very similar to the ‘hollow reed’ state where a Shaman practices healing work. Through that hollow reed comes something else.
I am moved by what I see as quintessentially creative, an emblem of happiness, brought into material being by my hand and eye. It is source of my sense of wonder and I call it child like because it is in its way a simple statement. Enchanting myself with it, it takes me away from pain towards my love of nature, without a thought in between.
Materials: red Scarva earthstone, lustre, three glazes (dark shiny blue, tin, shiny yellow), ceramic media (brown, black, petrol and sapphire bluse), gemstone Tiger’s Eye eyes. Fired to 1100°c. Dimensions: 19” x 17 (500mm x 450).
To find out more, visit my website www.Art2Enchant.co.uk
Ancient eroded walls are home to enamelled flora proliferating in sheltered nooks. Dragonflies dance by the stream as it emerges from rocks but before it drops to the sea below. Crustacean shells lie abandoned nearby. At sea level, visible through the ‘water’, small sea creatures dwell. Starfish hide, water snails climb the wall. Above the seashore, surrounded by bushes (created with dried and dyed flower heads) next to the pine cone tree, a cave sparkles with a million minute points of crystal light. Crystals imbued with gentle Reiki healing stand sentinel on the top rock, both inside and out of this complex world.
This miniature if not so tiny circular world is the first in the Natural World Series. A fixed orange Calcite crystal sits on the top level. All others are changeable/removable for cleansing. All crystals imbued with natural Reiki healing energy.
Materials: white stoneware, oxides, shells, fir cone, embroidered dragonflies, flower heads, ceramic media, glass, four glazes. Crystals: orange calcite, rose quartz, half quartz geode, amazonite, carnelian. Approximate dimensions: 16” diameter x 3” high (400 x 75mm).
To find out more, visit my website www.Art2Enchant.co.uk
This miniature if not so tiny circular world is the first in the Natural World Series. A fixed orange Calcite crystal sits on the top level. All others are changeable/removable for cleansing. All crystals imbued with natural Reiki healing energy.
Materials: white stoneware, oxides, shells, fir cone, embroidered dragonflies, flower heads, ceramic media, glass, four glazes. Crystals: orange calcite, rose quartz, half quartz geode, amazonite, carnelian. Approximate dimensions: 16” diameter x 3” high (400 x 75mm).
To find out more, visit my website www.Art2Enchant.co.uk
Jill Austin
Art form: Applied Artist, Sculptor
Telephone: 0208 346 3781
Email: Jill@Art2Enchant.co.uk