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Parent Category: Technical Articles from Journal Back Copies

Category: Technical Articles 1998

All enamellers will remember how it felt to be a beginner. Veronica's delightful account of her difficulties in "making friends" with the enamels should comfort new members and enlighten the rest as to how far they have travelled - even if they think they have been standing still.

It was love at first sight when I first saw Pat Johnson's enamels at West Dean, their translucent colour and poetic images going straight to my heart. "How do you do it?", I asked fervently.

Now two Summer Schools, one weekend at West Dean College later and a year on my own, I am beginning, just beginning, to learn the process.

I am lucky to have a room in my flat which I can use as a workshop and to have inherited a small Uhlig kiln and some equipment. It was a leap of faith to invest in the enamels, as I had met mental blocks about the techniques on the Summer School courses and could not understand why. I think now that they were related to the gap between high flown artistic aspirations (Oh dear!) and the lack of knowledge or real understanding of the medium, but I decided to risk it anyway.

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