Baffles

One of my boys once had a friend who said he liked coming round to our house to play because Oskar had 'buffers'. I always think of that when I bolt the baffles into the long letter box shaped expansion box. We have 'baffles'! They help to slow the flow of clay in the centre and spread it out to the edge. It takes a while to establish the flow and the last long dish shape we extruded was amazing. One edge was flowing at a faster rate than the other, which caused neat and exact un- planned undulations down one edge while the other was straight. It was beautiful. A pity I made this dish so long that when I tried to shut the door of the kiln it was crushed. Rodger says it should teach me not to be so greedy.

So who got me started on this blogging idea....I now have blogger's back- too long on the computer. Still it should get easier now I am getting the hang of it.

Red Hair (detail)

This detail shows the underside of the extruded length, where it is curled over to form a handle and shows the ridges.

Extruded plate length

Here is a long bit of plate ready to cut off, having been extruded by means of the pugmill with expansion box. It has ridges on the base, already built into the die.

Long swimmer

Here is one of my long undulating dishes

Long wiggly dish in progress

This is a wiggly dish in progress. Here I am adding the handles

Finished stools

Here are two of my finished stools - they are actually quite comfortable though the next ones are going to be taller.

Stools in the kiln

My big kiln suddenly seems to have shrunk and now seems tiny. These two stools are made from the same extrusion

City Link

The piece I made for Potfest in the Park. The theme was 'Clayopolis'. It was an excuse to do something pretty different.

Halves joined

Extruded lengths firming up

Draping over

Lifting the extruded hollow length on a cloth and draping it over the (barbeque) barrel.

Using the pugmill to extrude

Christine pushing down the pugmill handle and Allie guiding the extrusion onto the board

Expansion box, designed by Rodger and welded together by the local blacksmith

Expansion box attached to the pugmill showing the clay being pushed into the corners by the baffles

About this blog

I have been persuaded to start this blog by a number of friends so here goes.

I have been making pots here at Barnbarroch since 1978 when I set up the workshop in the old school with my husband Rodger. I largely make slip decorated earthenware pottery, mostly thrown, the majority of which we sell from our own showroom. Every year I try to take time to develop new ideas and make one off pieces, which I either sell through exhibitions or display here. With the aid of the Dumfries and Galloway Craftmakers Award Scheme, I had the opportunity to go on an extruding course with Jim Robison two Autumns ago and since then, excited and stimulated by new making techniques I have set off in a new creative direction. I was then fortunate to receive a Creative Development Award from the Scottish Arts Council which has given me the time to develop these ideas and embark on the challenge of making larger scale pieces. I thought it would be good to share some of this excitement.