Barnbarroch Pottery

Boats drying out

2012-02-10T13:34:00.000-08:00

I spent the best part of this week finishing the flotilla and decorating my two large dishes. I rather like the colour of the pieces as their layers of sprayed slips begin to dry. (I now have a rather sore shoulder to pay for what was a very long spraying slip session. They are pretty heavy to lift in and out of my Wendy House spray booth and I applied several colours to each piece so not surprising).

The faces have been washed and rubbed with three different slips, brushed well in.

I have added a little jewel of colour ( I hope) on the sailor's collars to brighten them up a little. Other bits will rely on touches of glaze.

I slightly changed my mind about the 'plant barge', as the pots I threw just didn't look comfortable when I tried them in the slots. Instead it will be a 'fresh flower barge'. The vases are now extruded cylinders and I rather like the idea of masts with flags of flowers.

This evening everything is drying out slowly under polythene with the thinner section of oars and tails still wrapped in clingfilm. I did have a nasty scare the other evening as one boat started to capsise. It appeared to be being pulled over by the thinner section of the oar which was beginning to dry too fast. With some extra clay plugs from below as it lay sideways on foam and twenty four hours to even up I seem to have saved it, so far....never say die.

The week's shipyard and other images

2012-01-29T11:08:00.000-08:00

I've been at it all week and still have two boats left to put together tomorrow. How many did I embark on? Here are some of the creations so far.

This one is going to take plants. I have thrown some holders which will locate into the holes in the deck. It should become a sort of plant barge when it is finished.

The honeymooning couple or the hen pecked husband?

A pile of oars, made from extruded sections and then pulled a little,

and a pile of sailors waiting for their oars (and their hair). What a tangle of arms I got into with this one. Everything had to be put together at exactly the right time - the oars stiff enough and the arms bendy enough, but not too floppy. I was late through for supper that night, they couldn't be left until things had been stabilised and they were falling over and flopping with oars bending the wrong way for quite a while. It was hard to have enough fingers and thumbs. At one point I thought that I had put figures in back to front, cut them out again, making a huge mess in the process and then realised that they were right after all!

These fine rowers are now sitting on the swell, perhaps feeling a little seasick

and not at all happy about the upstart in the speed boat.

If I have been having fun this week, this sculptor has most definitely been having fun.

He is kinetic sculptor Johnny White, and has a touring exhibition which we are lucky enough to have at Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries until Easter, entitled 'Beastly Machines'.

Here are some images from the opening on Saturday.
'Thrush Hour' above.

'Fido Dogskiofski'

'The Lifecycle of a Mosquito'

It's the sort of show that children would love, and were loving. A dog which barked honkily when you stroked it's nose, a mosquito peddling a penny farthing. Not to mention the whale with an industrial bottle brush for its spout.

Feet, Heads and Waves

2012-01-23T09:24:00.000-08:00

There are so many boats to fill that now I have a Head and Feet production line on the go.

Plus a wave factory.

At one point last week I wondered whether I had really overdone it, I wasn't sure what to work on next. It doesn't help that all the pieces are hidden, wrapped in polythene and that I was losing track of which was what. At last I'm feeling that I am getting somewhere, and am reasonably pleased with the progress.

The boats are starting to sail. These two hulls are sitting on the 'swell' which I made by slumping the monster slab into the hammock. It still feels rather like an 'adventure' of a piece and I am not exactly sure how it is all going to turn out though I can see where I would like to go with it.

This is one that I have finished putting together. I was experimenting with placing the boat forward of the wave, leaving it behind. I liked the idea of the wave becoming the speed boat's wake and it seems to give more movement. I am working on a rowing boat which I am placing behind the wave, as it seems that when you are in a rowing boat the next wave is always still to come.

A Directional Dish and a foam harbour

2012-01-11T13:21:00.000-08:00

From feeling that my feet had become irrevocably glued to the long holiday that is Christmas and New Year, I now have so much work underway that every surface in the workshop has been filled.

I am back where I love to be best, happily following my train of thoughts with my hands. Of course not every thought is worth pursuing, but what I like is when a small idea starts to develop through the making process so that often unforeseen happenings unfold with quite unexpected end results.

It's not that I drift around in an unplanned dreamy sort of way, everything is in fact pretty well planned, but when two dimensional ideas become three, especially when extruding is involved I always seem to be quite surprised at the outcome. I think this is why I really love extruding as a making method.

I'm looking forward to finding the right design for this one. It seems to be going in one direction - it has the feeling of a sledge or some sort of weird craft.

Still playing with the boat themes from last year, I needed another size of 'hull' to sit happily on my watery base, so spent some time cutting a new die. I learnt a lot from last summers 'dragon boat' making session and knew this time to include a deck support for this shape. They behaved pretty well once I'd got the clay firmed up enough. The first attempts flopped horribly, so project was aborted until I'd dried flops, sliced sacks out on suction boards and re kneaded. Here they are supported by their foam harbour to firm up. As usual once underway I made far too many, always after the perfect one.

Some long thin boatish dishes and another harbour of coracle type ones in the foam support.

Once the boats have firmed up a little I can turn them over as arches and let them dry to leather hard. A funny thing about our new heating system is that things aren't drying nearly as quickly. But the workshop is warmer?! Maybe it's because there are less drafts. Whatever the reason it's suiting me fine right now since this lot would have me panicking if they were all to dry at once.

This afternoon I cut a die for some sea, so I should get at least some of these sailing tomorrow.

A Muckle Great Slab

2012-01-05T13:17:00.000-08:00

Much though I enjoyed the break, it is great to be underway again. I started the year by rolling out the largest slab that the new slab roller could manage. What a monster.

I collected it up by rolling it round one of the fat cardboard tubes that the lino was wrapped round, to slump it into the mould - a cloth suspended in a frame, with three rods beneath to create a ripple. I'm looking forward to tipping it out, hoping that it will look good upside down, as a watery base for something.

Other slabs I draped over some plaster hump moulds and I've been attaching extruded runners to them.

These are going to be wall hanging picture-platters. I was feeling a little blank, distracted by the Christmas break generally and was going to start the year with a batch of throwing to get the juices flowing, but a cut finger put paid to that. In fact it's been good to have launched myself into the bigger stuff as it's really got me back in the making mood. It's exciting to find the ideas and energy come tumbling in.

Plans for the year are taking shape. I have three main events so far to make work for, that is apart from our ongoing showroom, which relies a lot on visitors to the region who may or may not turn up. Who knows with such economic uncertainty around. There is our region's 'Spring Fling' open studio event in June, (four days this year to mark it's 10th year), Earth and Fire at the end of June, then Potfest in the Park in July, all great events but suddenly in terms of kilns they all don't sound so very far away - help!

I wonder sometimes if it would be better not to stop but then again much though I love my workshop it feels sweeter for a break from it. The old fingernails had actually grown quite long over the holiday period which shows either how quickly they grow, or how long it is since I kneaded up clay. They are now back to the usual broken and short pottery workshop variety.

I was enjoying the cacti which were looking particularly lush in the low winter light today.

There is a pot under this bunch, and you can just see the hat of a Mexican peaking out, the rest of the spiral is buried so you will just have to take my word for it that there are donkeys and Mexicans encircling the plants.

A toast to you all

2011-12-22T08:44:00.000-08:00

To all those who follow this blog - A toast to you this Winter Solstice, and wishing you a Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for 2012. Thank you too to those of you who have left kind and interesting comments over the year. I know that I am very bad at replying but I do appreciate them all.

Oh ..and our heating is working again back on! Yippee. (It's also suddenly got milder , but hey ho from now on we will be toasty warm again, all ready to get cracking after the Christmas break).

Christmas orders completed

2011-12-20T13:49:00.000-08:00

The month is rushing by and it is the winter solstice tomorrow. Hurrah, soon the days will start to grow longer again.

It seems so much harder to keep up the making momentum on these dark and cold days. Hopefully we might get the workshop heating system fixed this week which would certainly help.

The weekend brought a feast for eyes and ears, with the beautiful low winter light on the estuary in the afternoons followed by evenings of song with the Feral Choir's performances of 'Forgotten Carols' and winter readings.

These are some of the dishes I made using the new slab roller. I dug out one or two press moulds that I were old favourites - ones that had survived the Autumn blitz and it was a joy to roll wonderful huge uniform slabs and flop them in.

It was lucky that I had kept a few of these moulds, as I had no sooner finished the GRAND CLEAROUT when was promptly asked to make another version of this oval dish to replace a broken one from several years ago. I used the cat chase design again, as it seemed to fit the shape rather well and they wanted something feline.

Then I had a last minute order for another school teachers retirement presentation gift. Same school as last time in fact and they wanted a similar, but different design. I used a square dish press mould which I had fortunately decided to hold onto.

The moto of the school is 'Reach for the stars' and I was to portray the old building.

Oh my goodness, I shall have to double my prices if anyone asks for a BUILDING again. They are not my forte, and I spent ages on this one. It came out well, I have to admit, but all those windows....

So at last all my Christmas orders are completed and posted off or collected. I can start to think about what is round the corner for next year. One thing I know is that I will be doing the 'Earth and Fire' show in Rufford again. I was selected this time! Amazing, (I had sort of given up on that one as it seems so hard to get in to), exciting and a bit scary too. It's going to be a busy Spring...

December pots

2011-12-08T12:10:00.000-08:00

Winter Arrived over the weekend. Not exactly the snow packed drive to Corsock of the year before, but snow fell all the same, in a slushy sort of way. Despite that there was a record attendance at the craft fair, at times hardly room to move.

It was an enjoyable but exhausting day, so many people I know to say hello to as well as selling pots. My boxes were considerably lighter when it came to packing up.

These small oval dishes are quite dinky. I have made them before with the matching spoons, but over the summer I was asked by a customer to make a lid to fit one that she had bought earlier. It was fiddle to make a lid for an existing pot, with all the shrinkage - and an oval one at that. But it made me think that I should try a few with lids.

In fact the last kiln was nearly all small scale slipware - I really needed to stock up the shelves. It has been good to see the showroom full and welcome looking again, for any brave souls who may venture out in these stormy days.

Today has been a day to 'batten down the hatches', with storm force 10 or 11 raging outside. I am amazed that we haven't lost our power...yet.

Our swanky new heating system has broken down, it froze up because it's internal thermometer is mis-reading. So much for my bragging, it's been long- johns and thermals this week, until an engineer can get hold of the new part.

One or two awkward commissions completed. The land rover took an inordinate amount of time to do. Weird subject matter for a mug perhaps, but I am strangely proud of how well those land rover colours turned out.

Penguins, penguins....

2011-12-03T13:00:00.000-08:00

Come and join the penguin party at Corsock Craft fair this Sunday.

I spent rather a lot of late nights last week completing these little fellows.
A bit of fun and rather different in scale to the ceramics seats of earlier this year. They are ever in demand but I limit them to Christmas seasonal making, otherwise I would go bonkers.

I think that I had the image of the painting of the skating vicar by Sir Henry Raeburn in mind when I perched this penguin. He should have had his wings folded though.

These are Corsock ceilidh penguins practising for the renowned Corsock ceilidh in December, tickets for which can only be found at the craft fair.

I had a good kiln load of pots out on Friday, a last minute push to get some new work finished for tomorrow. I took quite a lot of photos today, so I'll post a few more next week. We have managed to incorporate a PHOTOGRAPHIC corner into the new workshop layout, albeit on top of the slab roller, but easy to cover with a white board. Hopefully from now on I'll be better at keeping records of my work. It was only in sorting out some applications this month that I realised how bad I had been at recording my work this year - pots have disappeared which are now only a memory in my sketch book. Even today I had a nice group of woman who came down from Glasgow (especially it seems which was rather amazing - they had seen some of my pots in 'No 16' restaurant), who went off with a couple of small but sweet pots before I had finished setting the camera up. Two pots less pots for Corsock.

Meet 'The Captain'

2011-11-18T13:04:00.000-08:00

It’s been ages since I’ve written anything on this blog. Time has raced by but lots has been happening.

Meet the Captain. Rodger has been working wonders getting the new pugmill all wired up and connected to a starter motor. We held our breaths somewhat, (what if it didn't work)? Since collecting it from Glasgow school of Art it has been stored in the garage patiently waiting. What a happy purr it made when we switched it on - a hungry beast waiting to eat clay. Next step is to get a curved expansion box made up. I have only seen a picture of a vertical pugmill being used as an extruder so there will be lots still to work out.

Alongside the Captain is the newly aquired wide slab roller. It took a wee bit of adjusting. It was made by someone at Glasgow scool of Art and has it’s own peculiarities, but it worked beautifully once we got the hang of the adjustments. I have laid up several press-mould dishes today, one of which was always a beast to get a slab big enough for. This time I had extra to trim off.

You may notice how clean the floor still looks, I expect I will eventually tire of sweeping up but it is so easy I am still a little workshop house proud.

I’ve been having fun making some volcanos with explosion spoons for the Scottish Potters Exhibition, entitled 'Fire and Earth'. Since most of my recent work seems to have been somewhat water based in theme, I decided I had better embark on a group specifically for this title.

They have sprayed slips on the outside and dribbled white over the edge which I coloured with a honey glaze.

The show opens tomorrow At Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries. I may even get along and meet some SPA members. It will certainly be interesting to see the other work.

Space

2011-10-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

What an almighty clear out we've been having. Three car loads to the dump today and more to go. But hey, look what we've done. Goodbye lovely wooden floor, so wickedly abused by spillages of clay, slips and glazes. Since we were re-organising the workshop anyway, we have taken the plunge and bought some lino to put down. It always seemed a shame to cover up the knobbly floorboards, which have been worn away by many generations of school children's clogs.

What a job, moving everything into islands, while each roll was laid. There is one last wall still to go, but nearly there.

Oh the joy of this new space. So much of our workshop furniture was built in situ when we first moved here, and is now in the wrong place. Rodger unbolted the long bench from the wall and it is now on castors, flexibility is the new word.
The PLAN is to have the buckets under the benches at the edge, leaving the middle tables moveable. (Well, I said PLAN)!

I was getting a little agitated as to how long this was all taking, but I got back to my pots yesterday afternoon. The main table is in a totally different place, and it really felt like the space was working for me rather than against me. I mean instead of having to walk ROUND things to get to the sink there is now a direct route!

And it has to be said that the boring easy wipe floor is a dream.

The Hare and the tortoise or the Aeronautical engineer and the Craft Potter

2011-09-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

Funny thing to have an aeronautical engineer coming to ask a craft potter for her advice as to the suitability of clay to make a 'tool' (mould) over which to form softened titanium. But that is indeed what happened this week. At one point I was envisaging being asked to extrude an aircraft wing, and had wonderful visions of flappy Boeing aeroplanes with ripply-dish type edges. Explanations of shrinkage, warpage etc. put paid to this, as there did have to be an un-Christine like degree of accuracy, well at least to a couple of millimetres...

What an interesting thought though, and I think what with Rodger's knowledge of moulds and casting from his bronze casting days, and a crash course in clay types we MAY have helped a little. He went on his way seemingly happy to have been pointed in the right direction.

I am now in possession of some lovely flat aluminium sheets, offcuts from the aeronautical industry, which will keep me in die making materials for a fair few up-and-coming projects. Thank you.

Flat as a Mermaid

2011-09-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

It seems to have taken me ages to have got anywhere this last few weeks. There seems to have been a lot of STUFF to do which isn't directly making, so never feels exactly productive.

Besides which after a non stop year I think I have been feeling as flat and washed out as this mermaid!

Unpacking the kiln, pricing the work, packing up orders, delivering the prizes, re- stocking the showroom (and finding that it was full of spiders and dust), and wasting a morning taking a batch of pretty poor photographs. But today I finally finished off the name plaques, mug and plate orders which I had thrown and put in the damp cupboard just before Rodger and I took off on a short camping break.

The teapots turned out well, and seem to pour fine, apart from the fact that I slightly overdid the angle of the spout. This is to counter the natural twist which 'uncurls' slightly with a thrown spout. I think 25 past was a bit too generous.

Meanwhile the workshop clearance continues. We are trying to fill a dustbin of RUBBISH every week for the next month. After all 33 years is a long time to fill up a studio space. If we can empty enough cupboards to lift some of them out of the way, we are hoping to replace some of the dangerously worn, torn and dangerously trippy-uppity lino.

A very nice book arrived this week. Compiled and edited by Alice Leach it is a catalogue type record of some of the artists who passed through Dartington Hall school.

Here are a few pages:

Bernie, (Bernard Forrester) taught Pottery at the school and made exquisite pots himself. By the time I went there Bernie had semi retired but he continued to teach jewellery at weekends. In the two years I was lucky enough to have been at the school I never missed one of his classes. He was the most gentle, patient and sincere teacher one could have wished for.

Bernard Leach had a lot to do with the school, also teaching there part time at one point when he was working at Shinners Bridge Pottery.

The book is laid out in date order, so jumping on here are my good friends Nicky Scott on one side and Jonny Nance on the other, both in my year and my fellow family in Sicily.

...and here is my page. So very humbling to be in such good company!

Last page to show is Alice Leach, the dynamo behind the idea of the 'Power of Place exhibition', and the editor of the book 'Portfolio'. I am regretting a little that I didn't manage to get down to Devon to the Last-Ever-Re-union, and meet Alice, she is some tenacious dynamo and her paintings and drawings are an inspiration.

Flying Cats and Sunsets

2011-08-31T13:28:00.000-07:00

I made a couple of these dishes earlier this summer. Inspired by a Utube video of a leaping cat in slow motion, I decided that my creatures needed a bit more movement. It was a revelation to be able to freeze frame the video to do some drawings. When can you ever get your own cat to hold such a posture.

This teapot seemed to be asking for another 'flying' cat. Of course a few liberties have to be taken with the drawing, but it has helped me to get into a looser way of fitting the creature with the form.

These are slip decorated and waiting for a bisc firing.

I'm quite into tails at the moment.

Lemurs tails can become quite abstract.

Meanwhile The HUGE ruthless clear out has begun. So many plaster moulds from 30 years ago, high on a top shelf....am I really going to go BACKwards when I am always looking for NEW challenges? NO, of course not, but oh so hard to throw them away. This weeks dustbin has reached capacity, with lots more to be added next week. The space on the shelves is wonderful.

Hurricanes and earthquakes in the USA, while the sky in S W Scotland was on fire.

Goodbyee

2011-08-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

This week it's been goodbye to Allie, who has moved up to Edinburgh. I have been so lucky to have had Allie's help and support over the last few years, just the perfect person at the right time. I'll miss her a lot, not only for her capacity to eat up jobs, but also for her good company, humour and patience.

Last week we fairly 'beasted' through the work and I now have shelves filled with this years Hard Rock Challenge prizes, plus a good batch of jugs and mugs drying out. So huge thanks Allie!

It will be another significant change at the pottery. I see it as an opportunity to reflect on where I have travelled to over the last few years, and where I am going.

Here is a pretty straight forward bit of advice cut out from a junk-mail banking leaflet.

But if possible I am hoping make less pots, at least for a few months this Autumn, and spend some time developing the more individual 'pieces'.

I choose the word 'pieces' deliberately.

My good friends from art college, potter Sue Dunne, and mask make Stephen Jon, have been staying this week. I asked their opinion about the use of the term 'sculpture' as in 'ceramic sculpture'. I have never been happy with this description, it conjures up something which I don't feel I make. I tried using the term once in a 'Spring Fling' brochure, only to have one woman remark, "Lovely pots, but where's the sculpture'? which only confirmed my discomfort with the word. But if one leaves the safety net of even a hint of function behind, as does 'Out of Sink', what exactly does it become?

Not for the Faint Hearted

2011-08-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

Back home after a great, if exhausting, time at Potfest in the Park. Honestly, potters are made of strong stuff. These shows are not for the faint hearted. After all the frantic making, (will it dry in time?), last minute firings, packing, loading, lugging, collapsing into tents, vans, then up next day to look good and bright and on top form, full of enthusiasm to sell your work. What a brilliant bunch of folk.

The theme for the competition piece this year was 'Marking Time'.

I realised that using time as a rhythmic pulse may not be the obvious interpretation, so it seemed important to come up with a helpfully suggestive name. After much family input, the one which hit the mark, was 'Out of 'Sink'. ('Hit the mark', could have been a good name actually),

This fellow was blatantly out of sync. I got into a spot of trouble here though. A visitor stood chatting to her friend in front of my stand, having the following conversation.

"It really annoys me when people can't spell. There was a piece on the lawn there with the title 'Out of sync', and do you know it was spelt S I N K! I can't understand how...etc, etc

I had to own up that it was me.

'It was a pun, you see. If I had spelt it correctly, a lot of people simply wouldn't have got it'.

I don't I think that she was much impressed. Fortunately others seemed to like it ok and it got the public vote.

There was a great variety of ideas - here are a few which I managed to photograph.

Lucianne's Lassalle's de-fragmented figure looked great in this setting. In the foreground Chris Cox's core samples.

This made me chuckle. Richard Dewar's piece 'The potter who is marking time because he doesn't know how to get his pot of the wheel'.

Mark Smith's lively ship on a plinth if old Times newspapers.

I didn't 'find' my camera until the last day, so by the time I took this shot my stand was rather picked over and my best pieces were missing. Indeed I was very lucky to have had such a good show, so thank you to everybody who stopped by.

I loved Meri's cowering creature with teeth. I got to know it well, as my next door neighbour. When someone else bought it on Sunday I felt that I had lost my friend. I really enjoyed getting in to Meri's fantastic world of creatures, a most enjoyable stand to be next to. With Hannah on the other side I really couldn't have had better neighbours.

There were some very realistic hare and dog sculptures....

Oops, got an itch, that gave the show away.

It was a particularly good Potfest in the Park show this year with some fantastic work, always such a treat to have the opportunity to see so many continental potters.

I tried to resist spending too many pennies, but oh so tempting. Such a little purchase from Mathieu Van der Giessen, a cup for the occasional Guinness perhaps.

I am also now the owner of a sweet little pot and spoon made by Anna Lambert whose work I have always enjoyed.

Off to Potfest in the Park

2011-07-27T13:41:00.000-07:00

I'm rather pleased with these greetings cards, depicting images from my pots, which I've had made up.

They are really smart with envelopes and have a nice little detail on the back.

They arrived just in time to take to the show tomorrow, so much easier to pack up than pots, which is what I've been doing today.

At one point this afternoon it felt like mission impossible to sort this lot out, but (nearly) everything is boxed up tonight, ready to take down to Potfest in the Park tomorrow.

Two more kilns come out tomorrow morning before I leave, so there might be a few more pieces to pack. Why on earth does time concertina like this?

Oh, and the boat sections survived the kiln, and are looking good, I think. Of course all I can see are the areas which could have been better, but I have barely had time to get to know it in its finished state. I'll get some images taken after Potfest. No time left today.

At least someone was enjoying the non stop kiln firings which seem to have coincided with a spell of proper hot sunny weather.

A ladder by a warm kiln, what bliss. What more could a cat ask for.

Somewhere in one of the many recent kiln firings I managed to finish this tile panel which was ordered ages ago. It is to go behind a range. All these creatures featured were specifically asked for, as was the border of hops. It is hard when the client has asked for something so specific, but it seems to be what was wanted. Hopefully when it is up I can take a proper in situ shot of it.

I never posted a picture of this one which I made earlier in the year as I was hoping to be able to take a photograph of it in place, but I'm not sure that it is up yet. It is difficult to get the feel of the thing standing on a ladder. Surely it will look better round the wood burning stove.

The design problem here was how to fit a heron onto a very tall narrow space. (Cut its tail off). The tiles for both these panels were extruded with ridges in the back, then dried very slowly between boards. I am pretty pleased with how flat they are, but it does mean they take a long time from start to finish.

The teachers plates were finished too, collected and presented. I used the same design as the earlier one as that is what they wanted but this time they are decorated using slips.

Phew, I seem to have at last cleared a backlog of troublesome commissions. Er, well, actually a few more seem to have crept in to the book when I wasn't looking. But for now I'm off to Potfest to enjoy some good company and who knows, I may even sell a few pots.

Wendy House Spray Booth extension

2011-07-03T13:38:00.000-07:00

It was Wednesday before I was ready to get some slips onto my finished boat sections. But they were too big to fit in the (dish washer casing) spray booth and I would need to take them outside. The weather teased me, every time I thought I had a slot the blue sky disappeared and a ridiculously heavy shower chased me inside again. But Mr Fixit Rodger came to the rescue.

It can be hard living with a 'never throw anything out' person, but I regularly have to eat my hat, because he appeared with an old Wendy house frame with which he made up a spray booth extension. It not only worked perfectly but with the high ceilings it can be hoisted up and down on pulleys.

Actually, a copy of Jim Robison and Ian Marsh's book on slab built ceramics had arrived that morning. Rodger was looking through it over coffee and spotted a photograph of Jim spraying in a sort of plastic sheet extension which gave him the idea. Good timing indeed. Thanks Jim and Ian.

Yet more equipment from Glasgow School of Art. We collected this beast of a slab roller on Tuesday. What a monster.

Quite excited about the huge studio rearrangement which is going to happen sometime late summer, and the potential of this new bit of kit.

Row, Row Row the Boat

2011-06-26T13:00:00.000-07:00

I'm getting there. Spending way too long on this piece, totally absorbed, but a couple more days should do it. Well, for the time being anyway.

An idea takes shape

2011-06-22T13:49:00.000-07:00

There has been a lull in creativity since Spring Fling. That isn't to say that I have been sitting about twiddling my thumbs. It is more that I haven't been feeling that inspired or enthusiastic about what I have been making. The two teacher's plates are being glazed fired tonight, but I had a such a tight deadline in which to make them they had become more of a worry than a joy.

Then the tile panel which I thought I had in the bag turned out hopelessly the wrong size...don't ask! Ok then, do, but it's boring.
Anyway, they rattled about within the perfectly fitting border, so I have been re-making them. Aaargh!

I was becoming allergic to my lovely workshop and by last week I thought I would go mad if I trailed one more oystercatcher.

Something had to be done!

So I started the project which had been swimming around somewhere at the back of my head for sometime. I knew that once underway I would get hopelessly carried away, so I had been putting it off until I felt that I had cleared enough of my other deadlines first.

But at last, I got the new die cut out and have made a start.

The first attempt split as it firmed up and I could see that there was a stress line being formed even as it was coming through the die. We mushed up several attempts and an extra centre ridge has sorted out the problem.

The straight length worked fine but I wanted to curve the end. So we made a ski run out of thin ply on which to 'birth' the shape.

The hull is coming together now.

and the prow...

and a bed of ripply sea,

and a boat full of sailors. Arms on tomorrow.

It seems fitting that here I am boat building as outside the rain has been pouring down. On Saturday evening I dashed into Dumfries to take part in the Guid Nychburris (Good neighbours) parade with the Samba Sisters. Miraculously just before the floats set off the rain stopped, and the town came out to enjoyed the procession umbrella free.

A dead clam in a box

2011-05-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

Well, that's Spring Fling 2011 Open Studios over for this year. Phew! The windows have never been so clean, and the workshop so free of spiders since....this time last year!

It is a wonderful event, and thank you to all the hard working Spring Fling committee who put in so much time and effort. Over the three days I pretty much had a continual stream of visitors coming through. Indeed there were moments when so many arrived at once I really rather wanted to hide.

I met some of the most delightful people, but used to a quiet space mainly on my own and wanting to do everyone's interest justice I find it quite exhausting.

Thank you to all the kind and appreciative people who made the trip here. Please come back again when I have recovered!

Tomorrow the spiders can return and the workshop will soon go back to it's ordered muddle.

My nephew Patrick, was around four years old when he was taken to Australia where he had to meet hoards of Australian relatives. After being the centre of attention for the day, he told his Mother that he wished he was a clam, no, he wished he was a 'dead clam', indeed, he wished he was a 'dead clam in a box'. I remembered his words this evening.

I'll crawl out again tomorrow.

An exciting new piece of equipment

2011-05-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

I have acquired another pugmill, 3/4 hp with a larger diameter nozzle. It seems that this Autumn I might be making even bigger extrusions. My little 1/2 hp pugmill struggles away, and although it's heart hasn't exactly slipped a beat, I know (when it overheats), that I am pushing it possibly beyond it's capacity.

It is a sad story really. Indeed a crime. The last ceramic course in Scotland finishes this term and the department is closing down. It has a good reputation, great facilities and tutors. But it is not 'cost effective' and takes up too much room. Apparently you could fit so many more students into those spaces that kilns, wheels, plaster rooms, and indeed pugmills take up. I am so lucky to have benefited from an outstanding education, I had a choice of colleges, and the one I went to, Corsham, had a ceramics department to die for. Over the last two decades they have been closing down one by one, and especially with the demise of Harrow, and the message that sent out, I do wonder that soon there may only be one or two in the whole of the UK.

I felt like a vulture picking over the sorry remains, I can only say that I will feel bound to put it to good use. But it will all have to wait for a bit as we will need a major workshop re-organisation.

Meanwhile, 'Spring Fling' looms closer. Only a week now until the regions major open studio event. I spent a day this week clearing out the shed, with visitors coming round the back and through the workshop we have to make make it look rather more respectable. Next week I'll spruce up the workshop, well that is in between glazing a last kiln load of pots, tackling the damp cupboard full of platters to slip decorate, and throwing a couple of large plates for two teachers who are retiring in 4 weeks time. Better get my skates on then.

I made it for Colvend school's teacher Miss Macdonald 21 years ago. The boy with the chalk in the centre was my son, and most of the children were recognisable. There were only 14 children (from 4 to 11 years old), in the school. A group of school teachers came in on Saturday with this plate in their hands. They wanted the same idea for their own teachers. This one was when I was still using a majolica glaze, which I have gradually phased out and now don't use at all. For one the glaze recipe ceased to work consistently well, (a change of materials perhaps), but I was also finding that I was getting too tight with my painting. The last straw was when at a show someone asked if the designs were printed. However it was good to see this plate and remember where I was at 21 years ago.

Crime and Punishment

2011-05-15T01:48:00.000-07:00

I packed up the pots for the show at Imagine Gallery yesterday. It took most of the day making each one into a football of bubblewrap.I couldn't bear the idea of a great hefty foot kicking the teeth out of one of my mariners, or of some great hulk sitting on one of the long flat hanging dishes - both of which I am quite sure happens in transit. So I had in mind the Princess and the Pea.

Before I said goodbye to these pieces I had a bit of fun trying out 'movie' on my hand held camera. Please excuse the amateur wobbles.

I Shot the albatross

All averred

Stony Eyes

Dead Birds and Deadlines

2011-05-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

I don’t know where the last three weeks went. I have done a fair bit of throwing, and the stock shelves are filling up though I could still do with more time on the wheel making the popular lines such as mugs and jugs. But my mind has been more occupied with the ‘Ancient Mariner'.

I have put in a fair amount of time into this project, at times perhaps rather indulgent, but I was really enjoying myself.

Last Saturday the deadline loomed loud and clear and I had to pull out of a planned hill walk with friends to knuckle down and finish off the glazing. The kiln HAD to be packed that evening. As I listened to some torrential downpours hammering on the roof I decided that maybe glazing in a cosy workshop with some good music was the better option anyway.

I was a bit nervous about opening the kiln this week, sometimes I have a quick peek last thing at night when it is nearly, but not QUITE cool enough. But no, I waited, not wanting to have bad dreams. One of Hannah’s pottery films from her excellent ‘Pottery Porn’ film night last week was about Gwyn Hanssen Pigott. At one point this wonderful elderly lady announces, (with a smile), that - ‘Actually, making pots is quite stressful...GLAZING them is stressful, PACKING the kiln is stressful.....FIRING them is stressful.... and OPENING the kiln is stressful’. Oh how we love making pots really, but I did think of her words on Wednesday.

And thankfully I am pretty pleased this time. I seem to have sorted out the somewhat drab finish of the mark one of the ‘Coleridge candle boats’. Rubbing slips into the faces has lifted them and brought out the expressions just the way I had hoped.

I had a customer today (who bought my snakes and ladders low stool for a ruby wedding present. Happily entwined snakes: ups and downs of married life, all deliciously symbolic.) She was a painter, and most enthusiastic about her work. ‘I am worried that I don’t have enough time left in my life to paint all I want to’, she said. I knew what she meant, I often have that feeling myself.

A Motley Crew

2011-04-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

Last month I made some 'Coleridge' candle holders. Though reasonably happy with a couple of them the finish on the others was pretty disappointing. I was really getting into the theme, so I have been enjoying making some mark two versions.

Using an extruded section as the boat form, the ends are filled with sailors, all based on the narrative of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

I have taken some time to make several test heads. They have all been coloured in different ways and I will test fire them before embarking on colouring the real ones. I really need their expressions to show this time, as the first ones were way too dark. I have used about three different layers of thin slip, dabbed on and then rubbed in with a dry brush, with some oxides later.

Here is the Motley Crew drying in the sun. I had to give them all names so as to identify which is coloured with what. The phone book threw up a few good ones.

Post script is that they came out of the test kiln tonight and I have some beauties. (Charlie Beaver, Ramsey Stitt, Horace Kidd......). Tomorrow I'll get the bigger pieces coloured, yippee.

John Dix Demo

2011-04-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

It’s been a couple of weeks since I went to a John Dix Demo day and I’ve been meaning to post a few photographs. Jan, who had been here the previous week on a work placement, was travelling down there from my place, and it gave me a much needed prompt. So I travelled over the border down to the Solway Ceramics Centre with my friends Su and Hannah - only 12 miles across the Solway as the crow flies, though around 60 or 70 by road.

I have to admit, I come out with hands up - I have never really GOT tea bowls. I have noticed that they are often approached with some sort of hallowed and reverent air, which has has never been a good starting point for me. However I watched and listened to John Dix making his, with increasing fascination. There was much I recognised in the fluidity and economy if his movements. The harmonious calm of hands which knew where they were going and what they were after. I loved the way the wheel turned with a lazy serenity, and the deliberate but controlled irregularity of the form as it developed its own character. I know I when I got home and looked at my own pots they suddenly seemed horribly tight.

But most of all I loved watching him make these long dishes. Thrown without a base, uncurled and thudded onto the table to stretch it some more, then the end pushed over with a confident hand. It could have been a Tai Chi movement.

These fat handled jugs were made to pour with either a right or left hand, a lovely idea.

It was glorious Spring weather last weekend, just perfect for a planned hill walk in the Moffat hills with some friends.

The first real sun for me this year. I felt great that evening and slept so well. I see that I just need to climb a hill every day.

Little Squidgey Amorphous Things

2011-04-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

It is really annoying when you have to change your email address, or for that matter your mobile phone number. Even when you THINK you have informed everyone in your address book, there is always someone who has been missed. And then does everyone ever delete the offending address/number? I know I am guilty of having a few duplicate email addresses leading to the oft asked question.... 'Now is this his OLD one, or his NEW one'?

Well for one of the above reasons I have been missing my 'Potfest in the Park' emails, so I had no idea of what this years competition theme might be. However, some dear folk, called 'Us,' took it upon themelves to enlighten me today with this kind post card. Thank you 'Us'!

A rather long blog

2011-03-12T09:18:00.001-08:00

It’s been so long since I’ve written anything I almost don’t know where to start!

Well, it’s been busy with lots getting finished and still quite a bit underway.
The bird candle holders took ages, I spent WAY too long on them, and then proceeded to use slip in untried, untested colours combinations, using mesh to spray through and give them spotted breasts.

All bisc fired, (above), and I unpacked them from the glaze on Thursday morning, hardly time to get to know them, and dashed over to McGill Duncan Gallery with a hot box for the ‘Flights of Fancy’ exhibition. The show opened last night and my potter friend from college days Sue Dunne came up for the preview. She had some of her beautifully delicate pots with feathers and eggs in the show. Zoe always makes such a great job of displaying the work, with paintings and prints so well and tastefully hung. Everything looked fantastic. The spotted birds looked very happy on the windowsill, and chirrupped, ‘What were you worrying about’?

These are slip decorated and drying. I had an order for one like this, which I made last year. It's always difficult to 'repeat', without losing the initial spark, so as a result things usually get changed. I prefer the second one, where I changed the position of the tiger.

I got my ‘post card’ tiles finished and sent off for the deadline. I was really pleased with them in the end. Especially as they dried totally flat and shrank to EXACTLY post card size. You dancer!

The tiles for the firesurround are drying slowly under suction boards. They are long and narrow and I dare not rush them.

I also enjoyed working on these Coleridge candle holders. Here they are before I went and ruined them. Yes they turned out ghastly, as though I had tipped some dreadful 'evening class' glaze over them. What was I thinking? Still, next attempt they will be beautiful, honestly. I'll do a few glaze tests first. It always happens when you’re rushing and do I learn?

And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.

Having cleared some of the deadline stuff, I ‘ve at last got back to working on the ‘sidewinder dishes, waiting patiently. Great to design, I’m enjoying them.

I had a really good commission - a large dish with spotty fish. 'Just have fun'., she said. If only every commission was like this.

...and I was happy with this tiger ripple. Win some, lose some!

Another sort of creation, (here modelled by Inigo), was a headpiece for the Year of the Rabbit birthday party the other day. What a lot of rabbits, hares, magicians, white rabbits, carrots and even a fox or so made their appearance at this spectacular 60th birthday. Sorry to anyone who was nearly decapitated/ had an eye poked by some wayward ears.

Deborah Britt nominated me for the ‘Stylish Blogger Award’. Not sure what this means but thank you very much Deborah. I am meant to write seven little known/ unknown things about myself. Hmm, do I say things to sound a trumpet, which are mind numbingly boring, embarrassing.....what a challenge. And which seven to choose, or can I even think of seven?

Mulling it over I got a bit stuck on childhood, but here goes....

1. As a child ....I was asked by my Grandfather what I wanted to BE. I always said ‘An artist’. (He used to pretend to mis-hear and say, ‘An actress)?’

2. As a child ....I was happy for hours as long as I had cardboard, selotape and scissors.

3. As a child ....While at boarding school my friend Pipkin and I lived a double life. We WERE knights - Pipkin was Sir Lancelot and I was Sir Philip D’Aubigny. Amongst many of our ‘BRAVE FEATS’, we made scrolls, charred and sealed with wax which we buried in the out-of-bounds dust of the buildings’ attic. One day some child may yet discover them, if the plumber hasn’t got there first.

4. I made my first ceramic object at school. It was a rearing horse, which I rubbed oxide into and which sat proudly on my parents shelves for years. I was dying to use the wheel they had, and when I got my first shot at it I made ...a teapot! (What a monster)!

5. I spent nine months in Sicily with a group of school leavers from Dartington School working on a village regeneration project set up by an ex -teacher (my role was to help get a pottery up and running). During this period I inadvertently became engaged to a Sicilian fisherman, ( for one night only). It was all a horrible mistake. Giovanni was prattling on to me and I kept politely replying, ‘Si, Si, Si’, (my Italian/ Sicilian not being brilliant). Unbeknown to me I had agreed to marry him! It was sorted out the next day when he came back with a RING and an English (New York) speaking sidekick Michelangelo. Quite a bit of bad feeling ensued and for a while I was in the doghouse.

6. My friend Gina and I hitch-hiked back through Sicily and Italy visiting every art work we had covered in our A level Early Renaissance Art course. We slept in ditches, stayed with people we met, and had one night in a nunnery in Milan where there was a strange upright bath with a seat in it which on arrival we were firmly directed to. (We must have smelled).

7. While at Corsham (Bath academy of Art) I wrote an epic poem illustrated with etchings, set and bound in the college studios, entitled ‘Table’. (The story of a lighthouse keeper).

The first page read as follows:

Table’s kitchen steamed and boiled,
a humble man was he,
He loved his food, his warmth, his bed,
He never missed his tea.
The sea outside would rise and fall
and all the sailors sink and drown,
but high inside his lighthouse tower
snug was he within his bower,
snug and cosy, sleepy
falling
sleepy
like a noisy bee.
zzzzzzzzzzz

And as I write down that first stanza I can but think of Japan and the dreadful terrifying earthquake and Tsunami. Fiction becomes reality. My heart weeps.

Manic Momentum

2011-02-11T13:04:00.000-08:00

Its been a ridiculously busy couple of weeks. I started too many things at once, which always creates its own manic momentum. In addition I had a couple of glaze firings in both the big kiln and the top loader. As the kilns are both in the workshop the additional heat has been drying out pots behind my back. Silly.

Now I am under too much self imposed pressure, so for anyone who thinks that the life of a potter is a relaxing little dreamy world of spinning clay...

As I write my list of things to work on is as follows:

- 50 mugs, slipped inside and out, sitting in the damp cupboard waiting for handles and slip trailing.

- Tall candle holders which I have all but finished modelling but need to be sprayed with several layers of slip.

- Tiles (for round a fireplace - a commission) extruded, but need to be measured, cut, designed and decorated.

- Five waving long dishes, which need a fair bit of thought as they are the first to be made from the newly moved pugmill, I need to think about ends, handles, and the design.

- Shorter dishes to put handles on and slip decorate, one for an order.

- Several nine by nine wall hanging inch tiles to decorate

- Two glaze kilns to unpack and sort through

- New pots to photograph

I did manage to take a shot of these flappy dishes this afternoon, fresh from Monday's kiln. I'm really pleased with how they have turned out. I had the kiln packed ready to go but had to wait until Monday evening to fire it as I had been called upon to do Jury Service and had no idea how long it would last. In fact I wasn't picked and was home by lunch time, but I did wonder whether 'Pots drying out' might have served as an excuse for exemption!

I have been asked to take part in an exhibition of artists from my old school Dartington Hall. To help raise funds for the project we have been asked to send three postcard sized drawings for an auction in March. I have had a block over this - I don’t draw nearly enough these days, designing pots as often on the back of an envelope as in a sketch book. Amanda suggested I just make some post card size slabs of clay, and strangely even the thought of that has helped to free my mind. I LOVE drawing on clay!

I spent way too long working on these new candleholders. I was really enjoying myself and lost track of time. They are a scaled up version of some I made before, standing around 45cms high with a fatter body and extruded wings. I think I may use colour in a similar way to the flappy guinea fowl dish.

After a run of seven in a similar style, I had two left over to play with. I have in mind the theme of an exhibition for which I have been asked to contribute some pieces. The bird's body became a boat and this time I wanted to put an albatross on the prow. Gannets are easy to throw with sharp streamline beaks but the first albatrosses I threw were far too pointy looking. An evening of albatross research later, and Rodger and I had both fallen for sooty albatrosses. What eyebrows they have.

I should also admit that in January I had taken on way too many outside commitments - again my own fault. The Feral Choir put on two performances of Robert Burns, 'The Giftie Bard', the second of which was in Edinburgh. It was a pacey programme of readings, songs, and tunes on fiddle and clarsach with a stunning soloist Mairi Campbell. I became a Burns convert overnight. (Now its over I can take down the kitchen wallpaper of Burns words to learn).

Oh, and then there was the 'Strictly' charity fundraiser at the Easterbrook Hall in Dumfries, this year 'Strictly round the World'. Our group was Brazil. I'm the one in dreadlocks, luckily at the back.

Thank you Mr Fixit

2011-01-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

I have been badgering my Mr Fixit for ages. I want to move the pugmill out from the wall a little, ( or rather I wanted Mr Fixit to), so that I can bend the clay side ways as it is extruded. At the moment I can only bend it one way - outwards. Despite being tight to the wall, I did manage this small ripple effect last week. It was enough to explain to Rodger WHY I was badgering him.

He kindly moved it to priority job and many nuts and bolts and angle iron fiddling later, I now have a pugmill set at a slight angle so that I am all set to do a wavy dish.

I have been making some long flat trays, they need to be weighted down as they dry to prevent warping. These are being biscuit fired tonight, so I hope they behave themselves.

I had a whole lot of half finished dishes and plates waiting to be decorated with slip. Here are a few of January's new designs. Whaups (or curlews), to add to the oystercatchers for those bird loving visitors.

Two purring pussies,

and a peeking peacock.

I very quickly can have too many colours of slip out at once. My decorating space becomes an unholy muddle pretty quickly if I'm not careful. When I no longer have a surface I have to stop, stretch and have a tidy up.

But she'll keep me right.

Getting into gear

2011-01-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

At last, I began to get my act together this week. I managed to have at least four full days in the workshop, enough at least to get me properly tuned and into gear. Ideas are beginning to flow. The designs for the spotty fish dish above and the 'flappy squares' took shape and whereas the week before I had felt hesitant and unsure, this week they felt bolder and more confident. It just shows, you can't force things.

These have been incised and sprayed with layers of slips and are now drying slowly.

Lovely Christmas present, this one, brings a smile every time I use it!

The icy grip of Winter is still with us. Can you believe the fellow above, a photo that would surely bring a smile to his (anonymous) donor! (There is a sledge under there, he's not just fallen over).

The nights have been extraordinarily clear. The other night the new moon was almost as breathtaking as the eclipse.

Slightly disappointed not to get a stand at Earth and Fire again this year, but I do realise that it is a hard one to get into. However the next day I heard that I'd got into Potfest in the Park which has so far been a really good show for me.

I had a note from the website 'vasefinder.com' that their online vase competition had been launched. (On request I had sent an image to them last year). My seesaw black twin vase is no. 1 on the first page which is nice for me. It's quite an impressive group of pots, worth looking at. How the judges will be able to make a decision is beyond me.

One, One, One One

2011-01-01T11:07:00.000-08:00

Here's to One, One, One One

Or Two thousand and eleven. I like the sound of it, it has a cheerful bouncy sort of ring to it. We toasted the new year in with friends at a small ceilidh in Lauriston, a good and optimistic start for Rodger who was determined to see the year in.

I see the year in a very visual layout with January 1st right at the bottom of the big climb up to Spring. Will I have the energy and inspiration to reach the first rung, let alone get to the top ? Once I have my foot firmly on the ladder it will be fine, I tell myself, don’t be daunted by too much introspection. It is purely the dark midwinter days pulling you back.

The days between Hogmany and New Year disappeared into a general brown mush of thawing snow, much like the splendid chestnut and parsnip soup we had on boxing day but not so appetising.

Could we please just skip the dirty bit now and fast forward to new buds and shoots?

Christmas treats were a walk up the frozen Wyming valley on the edge of the Peaks, and out to Stanwich Edge.

Then sledging at Winster in Cumbria - we nearly got stranded there, it took the family the morning to clear the cars and the long driveway of snow!

Me and my boys, well hatted up.

I should be back into the workshop properly Monday. Pots are beckoning. The water is back on, and the ice bound drains back in use. I did look in a couple of times during the week but never managed to get much of a head of steam up in both senses. Christmas and Hogmany are fine, but there will be something to be said for getting back to what my parents used to call 'glorious monotony.'

The Winter Soltice

2010-12-21T13:32:00.000-08:00

In case I don't get another chance, Here's a toast - Good health and happiness to you all!

.....and here are a few numbers:
Snow fall Saturday 5 inches (och, that's nothing compared to some I know, but nevertheless......)

Hours to dig away snow to get car out, two

Temperature today -15c

Six layers worn in workshop today

Five doves nestling in the snow (waiting for their breakfast)

378 Years since the the lunar eclipse occurred on the Northern Winter solstice.

Time I got up to watch this spectacular event, 6.00am (Brrrr)

Fourteen years since the schoolboy Oskar recorded his first Album, 'Chicken in the Winter,' so named after this scrawny bit of winter topiary.

Enough of numbers.

It has been a week of icy wonders and a lot of time has been taken up with keeping warm, shovelling, clearing and ice breaking, and I have to admit, one afternoon, sledging. Apart from the sheer breathtaking beauty of every vista, and every sun lit icicle, I love the muffled calm. I crawled out in the car to the Feral Choir's Forgotten Carol performances which took place on three hairy driving evenings. The old Winter songs and carols are researched, arranged and some composed by our director Aly Burns, who we are so lucky to have living in Dumfries and Galloway. Picture sparkling frost, the smell of mulled wine and wonderful harmonies.

But the cats are miserable - one is bored, when she does venture outside it is to rush around for 30 seconds (another number there), and fly back in again to warm up her toes, while the other has given up going outside at all.

Today the inevitable happened, no water in the workshop. The fire has been tonking out heat and the new insulation doing it's bit, but this is extreme!

And pots, well, I have actually got loads underway. More than I can handle in the run up to Christmas, so what doesn't get finished will have to be well wrapped up. The damp cupboards are full of dishes and tiles waiting to be slipped, and I have several larger pieces underway.

This is number one of a commission for a large dish, to have a spotty fish design.

I'm making another version, similar but longer. It's still resting on the curved plaster mould and I've been adding the edges today. It goes through a stage of looking like an aircraft carrier but it should come out the other side.

Cutting into the edge helps and gives it a bit of character. It will get its handles tomorrow, they are bent and firming up tonight.

I am experimenting with the same extrusion, using it to form a square 'bowl'. A 'Flappy' bowl, this one. I have six of these in the damp cupboard. If I don't get them slipped they should keep sweet until after the break, as long as they don't freeze.

It's Cold!

2010-12-08T14:17:00.001-08:00

Did I really say that I was getting too hot in our extra insulated workshop? Well, that was before the BIG freeze and temperatures of minus 12c. It makes me wonder how cold it would have been WITHOUT it all.

This week, despite the new underfloor insulation and home made perpex double glazing, it's back to dressing up like a rotund orange Michelin man.

But what a beautiful winter scene outside. Beautiful that is as long as you don’t have to GO anywhere. Rodger and I had front row seats to hear Afrocubism at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh last week, a long anticipated treat. Edinburgh however was all but cut off and although we looked at every mode of transport possible, it was never going to happen. Boo!

Saturday's icy drive to Castle Douglas to meet friends and enjoy the opening of the McGill Duncan Galloway Exhibition was quite a mission enough. Apart from the special Dark Sky pots, I also made a few Christmas penguins for the show. It's ridiculous, but these fellows never seem to take long to find a home.

Sunday's was an even more adventurous drive, mostly in low gears on icy ungritted roads to Corsock, for the renowned ‘Corsock Christmas Craft fair’. Crawling along at almost a cyclists pace was really rather a treat. The snow covered road was overrun by red legged partridges and iridescent pheasants.

It is amazing how such a tiny place puts on such a great fair and has such a good turn out of devotees. It was rewarding to have such a good response sales wise at both events, so I’m pretty pleased especially after all the manic firings I’ve been fitting in.

Although it’s pretty off-season for us it’s always exciting to re arrange the showroom display with new work, and Allie and I set too and put up some Christmas lights and generally made it all look very festive. Not that many brave souls are coming by our way. I even got out the nativity which I made many years ago and could never bear to sell.

There are one or two Christmas orders still to post, but that's about it for current deadlines, well, lets not talk about January. That's the other side of Christmas, miles away...ha

'Dark Skies'

2010-11-21T08:45:00.000-08:00

I finished these two pieces a while back, but I have been saving them, plus keeping the images back, because they are for Zoe's 'Galloway Dark Skies' exhibition at the McGill Duncan Gallery, opening in a couple of weeks. Zoe used the images in her invitation leaflet and I see the Dark Skies vase is even in D and G Life magazine - thank you Zoe.

I called in to pick up some invitations yesterday but the McGill Duncan Gallery is a dangerous place. It is TOO tempting, with such beautiful things that I immediately become filled with lustful 'wants'. Of course Jill says this is exactly what they are there for! Recently aquired were some Paul Young pieces which looked particularly stunning, well displayed and beautifully lit. I simply had to stroke a few birds and sheep. In total contrast a were a pair of beakers and a teapot, made by Andrew Priestman. Quiet, simple, perfect in form, weight and finish. Uncluttered, and filled with a serene presence. In other words everything my own work is not and I loved them!

This tree bark had such a beautiful natural spiral, some sort of damage like whirling railway lines, it might well feed into a yet-to-be-made table, a far off floating idea which will have to wait until after the New Year.

Right now I still have plenty of slip decorated orders to finish. I never know at what point to say, 'Too late now for Christmas', but I hate to disappoint and will no doubt end up in a total last minute panic. Think the cut of is definitely next week though.

Yesterday I ended up doing a small glaze test as the new mix, a big batch of 10,000gms looked and behaved in such an odd way I didn't have the confidence to proceed. It was a new batch of ingredients, possibly the lead bisilicate (which has doubled in price), is from an entirely different source. I have a small and invaluable test kiln, and all seems to be ok, so even though the mix is white instead of cream in colour it seems to be behaving. Phew!

Today became filled with Sunday things, such as making a Christmas cake, and a lovely cliff walk. (Actually it was a cliff hobble, I had a 'Capoeira' beginners class the day before, great fun, sort of Tai Chi meets samba, but I think I over did it)! I also spent an hour trying to get my mobile phone monthly contract changed over to Pay as you Go. Four 'advisers' and queuing systems later I actually spoke to a human being with a soul.....

But ho ho, such a warm workshop awaits me tomorrow. Rodger had been on a mission to insulate and now we have underfloor polystyrene in place, plus double glazing - perspex sheeting held in place with magnetic tape. The windows look amazing because they have never been so clean and spider free in years. Roof insulation still to come. The only thing is that I am USED to dressing like 'Michelin Man' in the winter and now I keep getting too HOT!

Boom!

2010-11-17T12:36:00.000-08:00

A good friend from art school Stephen Jon, who has just come back from Kurdistan where he has been working on an arts project with masks and puppets, sent me this photograph. It is an improvised water trough which a herdsman had made for his cows and goats. Well spotted Stephen. of course I recognised and loved it immediately!

What has been happening in the land of Barnbarroch Pottery? I see it is three weeks since I last caught up on blogland. I've been busy, very busy, catching up and pressing on with with plenty of Christmas orders. Some have been going more successfully than others.

How easy it is to forget to vent an enclosed runner. Never done it before and I hope that I won't be so dozy again.... Disaster at bisc, and it was no small vessel! Oh the joys of pottery....

I hadn't really relished the idea of making Christmas mugs for an order, I thought that they could turn out a bit 'naff', but in the end I quite liked them! Think I might even make a few more 'reindeer on Criffel' ones.

I felt rather smug when managed to fit three of these in this kiln, (plus pots around of course), as I had been rather expecting another slanting kiln shelf escapade. The solution to long dishes and a tight kiln fit is to give them asymmetric handles it seems.

Lots of runners to wax, and I quite like them upside down. Hmmm...!

What a beautiful example of repeating patterns which repeat themselves. It's called a 'Romanesco' and when I found it in the Castle Douglas vegetable shop I just had to buy it. Way too lovely to eat though.

An Interesting Experience and a Special Birthday

2010-10-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

Back from East Anglia and an interesting trip and quite an experience it was too. It was indeed a long drive, taking eight hours to get down, but no mishaps (such as squashed dish lengths). When I arrived at Mundford on the Sunday morning I did momentarily gulp to see that Rodger hadn’t been joking, I really was to be mic-ed up with a screen on the back wall, projecting a giant image of the proceedings. Given that I could have either been like a frightened rabbit or just get on with it, I went with taking a deep breath and just getting on with it! (Not much choice really).

It must have looked quite comical as I needed a helper to hold each leg of the table to which I had G clamped the Big blue extruder. There were one or two mishaps, such as I managed to put one of the die plates on upside down so that instead of a hollow pipe, my handle fell into two bits. Then I didn’t spend long enough wedging the clay so it was full of air bubbles and one of my handles split, and I didn’t make enough spares. However, to be fair it mainly went well, and the timing, which was probably the bit I found it most hard to judge seemed to work out. By lunch break I had managed to throw, bend and slump the dishes and extrude the coracles, leaving the afternoon for assembling. I did feel more relaxed as the day went on, as I had the sense that the audience was interested and everyone was exceedingly nice and helpful. It felt very strange to be ‘clapped’!

As I packed up I had to sign the wheel which I felt was a bit of a cheat seeing as I had only thrown a sailor and a gannet, and the other signatories were huge throwers such as Nick Collins!

I was told later that a lot of other demonstrators bring a helper, I can see now that this would have been useful. It was the little things, like not having time to clear before the next stage, which I found tricky, so I kept losing tools, and often had to ask the audience if they had seen something. Also I hadn’t taken on board that I might be selling work. Felicity kindly sorted this side out for me as there was no way I could handle it.

On the way home I stayed over at Oskar’s where he and Rachel had a very large whisky ready for me. (Don’t worry. it’s not a habit, but it was a welcome dram that evening).

I decided to meander home and just enjoy my outing, so on the way home I called in at Jim Robison’s Booth House Gallery, hoping there might be some of his 70 at 70 show still remaining. Indeed a lot had gone, but it was still on and it was a treat to be shown round his woodland walk. The trees which he and Liz had planted when they first moved there, and were once dwarfed by the pots, have grown into a wood which is now the setting for a collection of Jim’s wonderful large ceramic sculptures. In some of the latest pieces he has incorporated chunks of thick glass, which create a kind of iridescent ‘stopper’ or crown. All very exciting and inspirational. (Sorry I didn’t have a camera).

I then called in at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park where there is an exhibition of David Nash.

Already blown away by the scale of Jim’s pieces, I stood in awe, humbled and moved in the presence of these towering pieces of wood.

I got back to Rodger and Inigo busy insulating the workshop floor. Rodger had been told by his consultant that he in no way to grub around under the floor boards, so Inigo instead was (not) enjoying the experience of feeling ‘like a Chilean miner’.

It should help as at present the boards rest on a stone dyke with air blowing through. Loft insulation is the next thing, Inigo and I will have to toss for that one.

It was a very special birthday yesterday. Rodger's new stem cells were one year old. We had a toast with champagne to them, and to his anonymous French donor.

Off to East Anglia

2010-10-15T08:46:00.001-07:00

Another very busy week, getting the new pots sorted out, some went off to Mainhill Gallery exhibition, some are put on one side for the Galloway Dark Skies exhibition, some are for orders and some have filled the many spaces in the showroom here. In addition I've been getting my demo organised for this weekend. The Big Blue Extruder worked ok sideways on a bench, as long as I was an octopus. I would like to take Allie too but there was no room in the box, so I will need some helpers on the day.....hmmm, this is going to be interesting. Rodger made up locating brackets and screwed them on the board runners so that they can go back to back with safe non squash able spaces between for the lengths of pre extruded clay.

The car's all loaded up ready for off tomorrow. I've probably got way too much stuff, but not being in my own space I would hate not to have that 'favorite' tool and it is amazing how many bits and pieces I do need - simple things like a sponge and bucket, to spanners and screw drivers.

I've also stuffed my much loved laptop with pictures. When I came to it I found loads of good images and hope that I have put together a decent presentation. It is all be a million miles away from working in a quiet workshop here, so it will be an experience. I've been feeling pretty nervous, and I had to give myself a pep talk. Instead of 'Oh how scary having to explain myself to all those strange faces, I have been turning it round and making myself think, 'How exciting to meet all those potters and have the chance to show them what do'. I think it's sort of working. Tell you when I get back!

I just wish it wasn't so far to East Anglia - I got quite a shock when I actually got round to looking at a map.

I found this Puffin teapot in a box. It was made for a special order and then never picked up. I was busy saying to someone that I didn't have any teapots at present when I remembered it. As the customer wanted one with a bird on it was just the thing. So sorry to the original owner to be, but two years is a long time on the top shelf!

500 Vases and some new pots

2010-10-11T03:05:00.000-07:00

A parcel arrived last week from the USA. A complimentary copy of 500 Vases, the latest Lark Books publication. How nice to be once again included in this sumtuous feast of pots. Having already been in 500 Platters and Chargers I was invited once again to submit an image, so thank you Lark Books. Most pots have a full page to themselves giving them the space they deserve and it is an interesting and varied collection with superb photographs. Mostly potters are from the USA with a few from Canada, and I have only found one other from Britain so far. Is it churlish to feel a bit peeved that I was one of the few who had to share a page, with the right hand side of the main image nearly lost in the spine? A pity, but still, nice to be in such good company whatever.

I had hoped that by now I would have sorted out my presentation and demo for the East Anglian Potters, but timing has been such that I have been too busy trying to get the last pots out for the Mainhill exhibition. So it’s all been pretty manic again. What is it about deadlines, however hard I try to keep ahead I still go crashing into them. Perhaps I am always too optimistic about how much I can achieve in one day.

So here I am on the computer getting some photos in order for East Anglia next weekend and thought I would just quickly catch up on the blog.

Two big kiln loads of glaze over the last few days. One unpacked and one cooling. My Father came over yesterday and kindly acting as courier to take the pots over to the Mainhill Gallery exhibition. He quite enjoyed leaving the cloudy East for a day to soak up a bit of Galloway Autumn sun.

Those two kiln firings coincided with beautiful and unseasonably hot weather here, leaving me gasping in what is normally a cool if not austere workshop.

Mainhill asked for something hare-ish. I was pleased with this one's face.

Here are some of the coracle boats. Above 'Noah with an outboard'.

This fellow is either being pecked, or has a hand full of corn.

..... Noah went for a swim?

Last week we took the big blue extruder off the wall and Rodger has found a thick board to mount it on. I am going to experiment with G clamping it to the table top and see if I can extrude from it horizontally. That way I can at least do some actual extrusions in situ next Sunday. Otherwise I will be taking pre extruded lengths and somehow not squashing them in transport. Quite a bit to work out yet. Better go!

The Hard Rock was Hard, but look who won

2010-10-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

After a torrentailly wet night and morning, things dried up just in time for the Hard Rock Challenge. It starts off with a 10 mile run followed by a 17 mile bike ride round Dalbeattie's Hard Rock MTB trail. I was posted to marshall at the top of one of the steepest decents. What excitement when the first bike through was no other than Hannah's Paul! Go Paul Go, (but take care please).

Here is Allie negotiating the nasty little rocky bit with two tree stumps. It was rather a too eventful place to marshall, as with nasty skiddy conditions the tricky stump produced one casualty who has to be taken off with a suspected broken collar bone, plus there was a broken ankle at the bottom of the next section. Blimey, making the prizes for the event was the easiest bit. These folk are nuts!

Well done to our very own, or rather Hannah's very own Paul and his runner Steven, winners of the mens team. Enjoy the mug!

..and Allie put up a great fight, winning first local woman in the individual competitors. Pipped to first overall by an unknown tri-athlete from Aberdeen. Sorry Allie -not these mugs again, she can't get away from them.

The herd of runners.
The final corner, photo finish.

Here is Rodger's consultant Ranjit, cruising along. A lot of local doctors seem to do the event, Dalbeattie clinic has two who take part. We were happy that Ranjit stuck to running only this year, we need him in one piece.

Hard Rock again and an Artistic Slug

2010-09-30T13:35:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that a year has passed by since I was making last year's 'Hard Rock Challenge' prizes. But 49 mugs are all boxed up ready to be presented to the interpid winners of this gruelling duathlon this coming Sunday. I'm going to be marshalling at one of the posts (in the rain if the forecast is right), and shall be cheering on Allie who is doing both the run and the cycle and has been training hard. She has a good chance of winning one of the mugs which she helped to slip and put handles on.

The 'Noah series' dried out eventually and I'll unpack the bisc tomorrow. It has been so humid that I gave up waiting for them to dry out naturally and resorted to lighting the workshop stove just to get things moving. I hoped to get a few more new pieces finished for the Mainhill exhibition and time was ticking by with damp pots going nowhere.

It was becoming difficult to start anything else as I had a shelf traffic jam and the couple of days throwing last week which has been hogging the benches. What a great feeling to get the kiln packed, get everything moved up and order restored.

Perhaps I should employ this artistic slug to help with a little slip trailing?

A Harbour Full of Coracles

2010-09-09T13:44:00.000-07:00

When I was in Kendal last weekend, immersing myself in Edun Ara (a fantastic event with singing, dance and drumming, and this year part of the Lakes Alive Festival), one of the participants asked me a simple question. So you are a potter, what sort of pots do you make?

Whether it was because at that moment in time I had a head full of music and not ceramics - but I found it very hard to answer. In fact I never have had a good answer to this question. Surely it can’t be that I don’t know what I make? But somehow I still don’t know how to communicate in a concise sentence WHAT it is I make. It would be so much easier if I could simply say, ‘wood fired stoneware, blue and white tableware, or even slipcast spiders. All rather worrying at this stage in my life and my career, especially as I have been invited down to the East Anglian Potters next month to give them a presentation and demo and generally explain myself.

Maybe I just I follow my nose? This month I decided to make a baby version of the coracle dishes, perhaps with a design of one bee or fish in the middle and they were to be dinky in scale. The first thing that happened is that when the first extrusion went through it became immediately apparent that I had misjudged the scale and they weren’t Mini coracles at all, more ‘Junior’ coracles. Then as Allie and I started to get the curves working they became very boat like indeed. I started to throw a few sailors and gannets and before I knew what I had a fair harbour full!

Di and Bill Bruce from Mainhill Gallery came over last week to discuss what sort of things they would like for their exhibition ‘The Shape of Things’ next month and dropped of this smart invitation. I get the whole back page which is rather good.

Friday 13th and other stories

2010-08-19T13:34:00.000-07:00

Friday 13th came and went. A strange day, not all good, suffice to say that it is an unfortunate fact that when a large ceramic object drops it breaks. A rather catastrophic reminder of the impermanence of pottery, significant by the date and curiously strange in that it was also my birthday!

Potters are pretty good at putting things behind them and it was otherwise a pretty good weekend. Oskar came up and we windsurfed out to Hestan Island on a steady Easterly. We had left it a bit late so the tide was well turned by the time we reached the island. This is the Solway so there was a fair rip developing over Hestan rack (a causeway appears at low water). We didn't linger there and Oskar set off easily. I had a bit more trouble as the rip was beginning to pin my sail and board down. It was a relief to get up and going and make the more friendly waters off Almoness Point and reach back into Kippford in glorious sunshine.

No photos of that day but here are some of the weekend before when a few of us joined the Edinburgh Samba school to play in the Festival Cavalcade.

It was exceedingly hot, and we drummed energetically round Arthur's Seat making a terrific racket.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHpyT_WW5jY

Back in the workshop I have been having one of those sorty weeks, with little to show for it. We got an order for materials written up and off, I tidied out the garage, updated photos on the websites and eventually wrote out a list and made a start on those itsy bitsy small orders that I have managed to put off for ages. None of them are particularly hard, or exciting, but strangely they take ages to do. 'One of these, one of those', and of course I have to throw more than one to get into the swing of the form. This on top of the showroom having a steady stream of holiday browsers has made for a rather unsatisfactory week workshop wise, but it will be a relief to get them made and off to the patient clients and then have freedom to get on to new things.

I remember Mary Wondrauch in her book on Slipware relating how she kept the rare but treasured letters of thanks she received from happy people who had bought her pots. Well nowadays it is emails but I received one of the nicest correspondence the other day from someone who had bought one of my dishes at Potfest. It made me smile from time to time all day.

PPP-Penguins and Potfest

2010-08-03T13:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I made seats, a table, long dishes and other such delights, but what really caught the imagination at Potfest was penguins. Lots of them! I even had to send an SOS to Zoe to bring down some penguin reinforcements, ( so as not to disappoint a fair few children - “Have you got any more penguins please?’)

Much to every one's amusement the reinforcements arrived in wetsuits. Well wrapped Inigo, thanks!

The reason for the rush on penguins was my competition piece. The theme this year was a ‘Shrine’. Mine was a ‘Shrine to Flight’. (Another reason that I wanted to hold on to the eagle for a bit). I'm afraid I never even got a good photo of it, though I hear that plenty of other people did.

It appears that it caused a fair bit of positive interest, winning plenty of votes. It won not only the ‘Spanish prize’, (the Spanish potter being Emile Biarnes whose work was stunning), but also the potters prize and the public prize! I was more than a little embarrassed, not being one who is comfortable with too much attention, but Niek Hoogland said, “Just enjoy!” So I did.

Potfest in the Park gets better each year with even more interesting overseas exhibitors. It was great to meet up with bloggers Dan, Margaret and Hannah, and find another blogger Novie Trump from North Virginia, who had made her impressive pieces in this country with someone else’s clay in 3 weeks flat.

So a successful show for me all round and a lovely show to do. I was pleased with my stand and Rodger's extra white boxes just did the trick. It was strange doing it without him, but probably good for me to HAVE to do all the talking for once. A reward indeed after the ridiculous amount of candles burning at both end that have been going on.

Back home I have been unpacking in go slow mode. No more big outside commitments for a while which is good as I need to slow down now for a bit, especially when I see those bags under my eyes in that bloggers photo!

Extra (to requirements).

2010-07-28T13:17:00.001-07:00

Trying to pack for Potfest this afternoon somebody is trying hard to come too. Extra (to requirements).

Pre Potfest Pandemonium

2010-07-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

It is amazing just how far half 10,000 gms of glaze can go when you miss the bucket. Well ok, half of it did actually go in the right place, but the other half, oh joy! Half past eleven at night paddling about in the stuff, Crocs full and squishy, and still to get the kiln packed and on. (I glaze the long dishes in a trough and it is is hard to pour the glaze back into the bucket without it building up a back-and-forward-out-of-control swishing movement, and yes I should empty enough slowly with a paddle first)! Eventually with the floor mopped as best as my tired brain could manage and the kiln on, I ran a bath, well I could hardly get into bed half glazed, to discover that the immersion heater hadn’t been on since the last person had a shower, so stone cold it was. By this time it became quite funny in a ‘so tired you have to laugh sort of way’. The trouble then was that though totally exhausted I couldn’t get to sleep. Well a cold bath at 12.30 am is hardly designed to promote relaxation and calm is it?!

But that was yesterday. Today I am smug in the knowledge that there are two more glaze kilns to unpack before Potfest, and I already have one or two new pieces which I am looking forward to showing.

Above is the little top loader with some bits and pieces in it to do with the Potfest in the Park competition piece....

But what a week. Glaze colours mixed at break neck speed. Oh how I was concentrating on getting all the ingredients weighed out, when some customers came in - honey mooning couple to be precise. So nice they wanted to spend some of their wedding money on my pots. Full of this cheery happening I went back to my weighing out, totally having lost the place and suddenly realising that I was following the wrong set of numbers. These new colours were only for a small object like a PELICAN! So rapid firing in the test kiln that afternoon which knocked my whole timetable out!

I am pondering the changing format of my small mix glaze tubs. Several years ago now we got old pill tubs from the local chemist, until they started the plastic bubble dispensing method. Then it was Orchard Fruits low sugar jams, until they stopped making it, followed by Aldi soups. I must admit that just lately I treated myself to BUYING some really nice little new tubs which do stack so beautifully. Such is progress.

....and the Pelican, fast fired, glazed with dodgy distractedly mixed colours survived, and I'm pretty pleased!

Table, comets and a glimpse of Royalty

2010-07-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

It was a long wet Sunday, so I was quite happy to stay in the cosy workshop (with two kilns cooling), working on some penguins and some tiles. By tea time I had gradually prised the door of the rather too hot big kiln open, and by supper time I had managed to unpack it and have look at my table. It must work as a table, because I lost the lens cap of the camera shortly after taking this photo - because I had put it down on the ...TABLE!

I'm pleased with the top surface, the glaze is really smooth and tempting, like one big tile. It is still a strange beast, more of a character than a beauty, but I have a certain fondness for its eccentricity.

There has been a lot of glazing this week, and still a lot left to do, but it is great to see some new work out tonight.

It seems ages ago that I started these long dishes. They are difficult to fit in the kiln, so kept missing out. Long dishes need long things on them, hence comets and thin mermaids.

I've just packed the big kiln up again with my pelican seat. It is the only thing in it. I'm not convinced that it is totally dry yet but as the bricks are still pretty hot it's been stewing all evening. I'll see what the steam test looks like before I go to bed, and depending on that may bisc fire it tonight.

I was enjoying drawing on these dishes at the beginning of the week. They're drying out now and hopefully may be ready to bisc as Pelican comes out. It is back to back at the moment to get things finished for Potfest in the Park. Rodger is busy making me some extra display boxes at the moment, doing a little each day - he's on to the sanding stage now and it was a treat to have his company in the workshop this morning. The finger joints are a work of art in themselves, he was enjoying using my scroll saw for them. Pity to paint them over.

As an interlude from pots this week I did have Wednesday afternoon off to go to Kirkcudbright and play samba for the Queen - at least that is what I was told. But of course it was playing samba for the crowds WAITING for the Queen, NOT for her at all.

Anyway we saw the lady, small and bent in her lovely turquoise outfit with matching pill box hat, (surrounded by some even bigger and shinier hats of local dignitaries ). She arrived in a huge maroon limousine, did a quick tour of the harbour - I was told that the brave lady was given champagne and pate to sample, followed by a freshly grilled scallop from the local fishing boat. Then off she flew in her helicopter, at which point the heavens opened with a loud clap of thunder, and everyone dived for cover.
So just a glimpse of royalty but lots of strange cameos which might well appear on a pot one day.

Webbed feet and Web Sites

2010-07-10T13:10:00.000-07:00

I have been working out how I am going to complete all that I hoped to make for Potfest, and so it was that I spent Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of last week solidly slip decorating a fair mountain of jugs, card racks, oil bottles and small dishes. I got quite stiff and had back ache by the end, but the reward is a LOT OF POTS on the shelves. One bisc load is now ready to glaze, including the table which fired beautifully flat. I have been enjoying putting a few cups on it.

Oh, and today I finished constructing the Pelican seat. It went pretty well until it came to the feet.

They took quite a bit of sorting out - the same challenge as the eagle seat, how to tie them into those great structural legs in a way which didn't look as though they were an after thought. I had to do a fair bit of looking at webbed feet, lots of images and sketches now lying around the workshop of these wondrous things.

Will it dry out in time for Potfest, and is it SAFE to let it dry too fast, The weather we have been having has been hot and windy, perfect for drying, but it has suddenly changed to humid and muggy. But maybe that will suit better.

I got my disc of photos back from Shannon, so here is the studio shot of the eagle seat. Would be nice to have an 'in situ' one outside, or in a lovely hall way, or landing, if anyone has one to spare.

I've been meaning to mention that Inigo has redesigned our original Barnbarroch Pottery web site. It has some good photos of the showroom and the area around us, though I still have a major job of taking some decent product shots to put on it. It is nice and easy for me to use though, so to be going on with I have just uploaded some 'snaps', with better images to come as soon as I have a moment...(AFTER Potfest).

Our original Barnbarroch Pottery site was one of the first sites Oskar made when still at university and though at the time he made a great job of it, somehow it had got terribly out of date, and I eventually decided to ask him to supersede it with my 'christinehestersmith' site on which I could display more of the one off pieces.

I was going to slowly phase out the Barnbarroch Pottery site but then realised that it still did actually serve a useful function. Visitors to the area needed a site which encouraged them to visit us here and which advertised the area plus something which might remind them of the designs they may have seen over the summer when they rang up later.

So two sites Smith I still am!

One of the many things which I would have loved to have done last weekend was to go to the opening of Jim’s ‘Seventy at Seventy’ exhibition at his Booth House Gallery. I had been a bit of a silly about this, or else missed a week somewhere in my planning, as I had rather thought that it was this weekend. By the time I realised it was all too complicated to organise and I never made it in the end. Never mind, it is on all summer so I will get to see some of his seventy pots even if I missed the celebratory aspect of such an esteemed achievement.

This one is strange

2010-06-20T08:57:00.000-07:00

Got the top on my table on Friday. Hmm, making the top separately may not have been such a great idea, as it looks a little strange. Fish associations may have turned into more anvil/ ironing board, but we shall see. There is an eccentricity and a certain elegance which I quite like but I am not sure that the construction is controlling me rather than me the construction!

With this scale I had to have everything pretty firm before the assembly stage, and beyond the point of no return as far as altering things. Still, I do have a second one, (oh yes) under wraps so I will take the lesson on board and hope to improve.

I had to use my RSJ template again to secure the legs. I never thought of myself as an engineer - indeed an engineer I am most definitely not, Allie and I were discussing the intuitive and the planned as making approaches. I would have to call this structure 'intuitive engineering', the concept of which is possibly a bit of an oxymoron.
Nothing engineering about the latest dreadlocks. French knitting and quite addictive it is too.

Samba Sisters had a float at Kelloholm gala on Saturday. We wound round all the little back streets scaring several dogs, but being rewarded by a sea of smiling faces of all ages.

Meat pies, unidentifiable flat sandwiches, coloured cakes and fizz laid on for the performers, brilliant stuff!

Try and try again

2010-06-16T13:16:00.000-07:00

There was so much finishing off for Spring Fling it is good to be making again. I threw loads of mugs last Wednesday, and with Allie back from Malawi to help with slipping and handles we should get them all ready for me to slip trail soon.

I had some extruded sections waiting under polythene from several weeks ago, and I have got started on some new large scale ideas.

I have an idea for a table which involves a wavy upright central column. I made a die which used the full capacity of the Big blue. It extruded beautifully but then how/when to cut it off. I dried it for a while with the heat gun and left it with a wedge underneath to air dry for the rest of the afternoon. No hurry to cut it off, I could do that at bedtime if need be. Ten minutes after Allie left I heard a loud WHOOMPH as it collasped and hit the wooden floor. Och weel, Try again. The next time Allie and I tried to lie it sideways, (after an initial power dry), but no chance. The middle was still too soggy. It was on the fouth attempt that I got out the big guns - the gas burner. This time I really got the thing steaming. I could see it trying to rip at the top and kept ramming clay ‘sticking plasters’ on to the tear until eventually I won. I still left it for an hour or so hanging from the big blue, but what a beauty. Tomorrow maybe I will get it joined to the base. I held it there just to try and it looked like it had potential.

I also want to make another seat with more of a bottom shape.

I've got the section tipped off, but I shall have to wrap it up tight until the mugs are decorated. I do get a great sense of satisfaction from the slipped thrown ware but it is the big stuff that really gets me excited at the moment, so I am having to be very patient. I need more hours in the day and more days in the week at the moment. But then it is also summer, and I don't want to miss the good weather, I need to cut the grass, find time to get out on my bike, sail a boat and play music. Sometimes it just isn't possible to fit it all in!

I decided to spend the last of my official funding on getting some swanky photographs of some of my latest pieces. It was rather a scary thing to transport the eagle seat up to Edinburgh ( as it is has already been homed), and in particular I kept thinking about Hannah, and cars shunting into my boot. I’ve probably never used the rear mirror so much.

It was a most interesting day, looking at these amazing images on Shannon's computer screen, which were actually my pots! It was also very exhausting and quite draining, making so many decisions, and actually quite strange to have so much time to really look at and contemplate my own work. Maybe it's like seeing yourself on stage - 'Am I really that ugly, mixed with, oh my profile isn't that bad actually......' Whatever I’m excited about seeing the final images.

Spring Fling madness

2010-05-31T13:30:00.001-07:00

Monday evening, Spring Fling 2010 is over and I am completely wasted! What a weekend, this was the busiest one we have ever had here. From 10.30am, no in fact well before 10.30 (the official opening time), we had a constant stream of visitors. Huge thanks to Chris my sister in law who came up for the weekend to help. I literally couldn't have done without her!

The idea was to get visitors to follow the arrows and come round the back, into the courtyard, through the back door of the workshop and encourage them to go out through the showroom.

Of course it didn't work like that and visitors arrived through every door, at the same time. Chris stood in the showroom welcoming people, while I manned the workshop and yard offering explanations, coffee and flapjack. The sandwiches and tea which we were brought were left uneaten and went cold, it was quite mad.

It was all worth that panic and burning the midnight oil last week though. Friday's kiln of finished pots looked good, and the courtyard was very happy with pansies in City Link and the ceramic seats in the sun, at least sun on the second two days. It really made my day today to see some people sitting in them having their coffee.

I took very few photos of the eagle seat, there was no chance with it only out of the kiln on Friday morning, but he did his duty manning the back door. It was definitely worth putting him back in the kiln for another coat of glaze as he looks much smarter now.

To my amazement within the first hour on Saturday morning someone bought him! Of course I was delighted and amazed, but also rather dismayed, as he simply hasn't been around long enough for me to think about him and get to the state where I am happy to let him go. However they were very nice people and were in no hurry to go off with him there and then, so I do have time to make a good photographic record.

I had some really very nice 'Spring Flingers', all interested and interesting, and so appreciative. It is all very rewarding, but now I am off to have a LONG sleep, I hope, and dream...

of Harpies perhaps. (This one is a benign chimera. I blame Rodger for that...)

Creations, Chaos and last minute Panic

2010-05-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

The last couple of weeks have had too few hours in them to achieve all that I had hoped and planned in the run up to Spring Fling. I have simply been juggling too many roles at once. As the days went by I had to rewrite a less ambitious schedule daily. The main priority was to get the eagle seat glazed and fired, along with the black twin vases and bendy vases, coracle pots and black tiles.

What have I achieved? Well, the eagle was glazed and fired, but being a perfectionist I decided to reglaze sections where I wasn’t happy with the patchiness of the glaze application. (It is really hard to apply the matt glaze at the correct thickness. Too thick it bubbles or crawls, too thin it looks mean and indecisive, and I didn’t want a bald headed eagle).

Of the black vases, most came out well and the second half will be cool enough to unpack tomorrow, along with the coracle pots and the eagle. The tiles will have to wait until another time.

I didn’t manage to start of any new work so I am afraid no slip trailing demos this year, unless I have time to extrude some tiles tomorrow, though I think that every minute may have already been accounted for!

Today I should have been tidying the workshop and cleaning the showroom but as I write both are still in chaos. The showroom is being used as a temporary photography studio, which is tricky as customers are still wanting to come in and are having to pick their way over pots which are strewn across the floor.

In my last post I described how I seemed to be having some issues over memory lapses. My last minute panic today arose from me losing my Spring Fling signage and incentive cards. Not just losing, but having no memory whatsoever of having them or putting them anywhere! With 24 hours left to go I was scrabbling round searching every crazy ‘safe’ place. Rodger eventually found them, this only after Rhiannon had set to to print and laminate some replacements, in ....the fridge!?

..and lets hope for a sunny Spring Fling!

A snug fit and some sanity issues.

2010-05-13T13:17:00.001-07:00

Well in all honesty I can't really say that it was good management, but when we came to shuffle the big eagle into the kiln it was a very well judged fit indeed. Hey, there was a whole millimetre to spare. (What this photo doesn't show, and indeed what I had forgotten about was that the lintel is a couple of inches lower than the dome of the roof).

It is on a very slow firing, so I am fairly confident that it should be alright, that is as long as I really remembered to vent all the sections.

Remembering, well there lies a confession of a tale. I had a visit from some policemen yesterday. Was I the owner of a certain red car? Er. yes. (Quickly thinking, loving Mother that I am - what has my lad been up to...sorry, Inigo). The car had been recorded on CCTV driving away from a petrol station without paying! REALLY?!* I keep a diary and checked, and yes, indeed I had been in Dumfries on that day,(to see the Tide Machine), and yes I did fill up, and yes it was at around that time. The police were very polite I must say, and together we checked my receipts and bank statement. No two ways about it, I had to come out with my hands up! I thought I would be marched of to prison there and then. However they obviously thought, 'Poor old doolally soul', and said that I would just have to drive in and settle up.
I reckon that Inigo got his own back by telling all his friends about his crazy Mum on face book!
(Still, slightly worrying, in the light of having walked off with someone elses supermarket trolley yesterday afternoon. Poor woman had to chase me round the Co-op).

But I have been working hard. Loads of long dishes slipped and drying out. I have been so enjoying drawing direct on to the clay. There is something very immediate and decisive about the line. I spent a rather indulgently long time incising the black vases (presently being bisc fired with the Eagle). I'm looking forward to getting them glazed next week.

I posted off these commemorative plates last week and they have thankfully been well received. They do take a very long time to make, and to be honest I don't charge nearly enough, considering the research and design time not to mention the execution itself. I try not to take too many on, it could get quite out of hand, though there is always a demand. The one above was a more inspiring brief than the one below, with Newcastle University shield in the centre. I very nearly boobed on that one actually, as I looked up the Newcastle University emblem on google and found it it be an attractive unicorn head. JUST in time I realised that it was Newcastle Australia, not Northumberland.

The impending Open Studio event Spring Fling is coming up at an alarming rate. There is quite a bit of site maintenance to be done. After the ice and floods of the winter and Spring, our car parking area had become a quagmire. I spent the weekend power hosing the patio and courtyard, clearing out the shed, while Rodger valiantly set too and spread most of the gravel himself.

In fact he was probably pushing himself a wee bit too hard. Whatever he has landed himself with another spike of temperature which will slow him down again. Gravel looks good though.
Rodger did manage to get up to Edinburgh for his first major outing, albeit finely orchestrated to be as relaxing as possible, to hear one our favourite Malian singers Rokia Traore in the Usher hall. We had bought tickets way back in February hoping that he would be well enough, and we were right at the front. She was indeed wonderful, beautiful, charismatic and a with a stunning voice which was both uplifting and brought tears to my eyes in turn. Though it felt like a major expedition, it was definitely one to be remembered.

Garden of Cosmic Speculation

2010-05-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

One day a year the Garden of Cosmic Speculation is open to the public. This year I actually remembered in time and alerted other members of my family who came from far and wide to join me there. The place is a visual feast and everywhere I turned brought new wonders. Why, there was even a giant undulating landform constructed from turf and gravel which looked remarkably like the wiggly dish which I had been working on last week....!

There are plenty of websites with wonderful pictures of Charles Jencks extrardinary creations, but here are a few of my own.

It was my brother's birthday, and how I wished that I had brought a candle to stick on the top.

Now how about this for a seat.

After the Cosmic Garden, My 'large scale' pieces have shrunk to insignificance!

A busy Easter

2010-04-05T13:11:00.000-07:00

Some more new pots came out this week.

I got some of them priced and put out in the showroom just in time for the Easter holidays. It is always rewarding to get them away from the grubby workshop and see them in a good space. But it was a bit hard when one, (the three fish below), went in the first morning - before we had time to get to know it. Lucky I took some shots the day they came out.

I'm quite pleased with these new extruded shapes. I'm not sure what to call them. They do feel coconut shell like in your hands, and are sort of boat shaped. Maybe they should be called coracle pots.

I had to open the showroom early last Saturday for some people who wanted to call in on their way home. I was pretty pleased when they decided to buy the second of the two freestanding upright wavy pieces. But oh dear, then came the faff. The credit card machine was ‘out of sync’ with the bank, so I had to ring the helpline. Aware that the poor souls were trying to get away early, I was most apologetic. I was eventually passed on to the card machine company, whose stony recorded voice informed me would cost of 10p per minute. By this time the pair had decided to drive to Dalbeattie 3 miles away to the cashline machine, leaving me fuming at a service for which we already pay an exhorbitant amount. What a palaver -I really prefer making to selling, if you know what I mean.

Some more long dishes, slip decorated earlier in the week, and now drying out. Another fox and fox gloves,

some penguins,

and a tiger. A visitor remarked that I had gone all long and rectangular - oh dear, is it that obvious?!

Last Autumn I was invited by an nice gallery to exhibit in an exhibition entitled 'Twitter'. I had to turn it down, knowing that I would be hard pressed to fulfil at the time. However I had already formed an idea of a twin 'vase 'shape which I would have liked to have made for it. At last I am managing to get the idea out from my head and into reality. So far so good...

The twitter bit is still to come...

It's been a busy Easter weekend, and I am most encouraged by so many appreciative visitors. (Bit annoying though when I am TRYING to get a twitter vase made and keep having to stop for 'customers')!

For some strange reason, today I sold TWO sets of stacking pots. Unlike the coracle pot I have had them around for a quite a while now, but still I had a bit of an affection for them. They left a big gap in the showroom to fill with someting exciting though.

March pots

2010-03-27T15:12:00.000-07:00

That's one big kiln out this week, and another one cooling tonight - there has been a lot of glazing going on. This little chap seems to have survived his fiery ordeal with equanimity. Maybe he had to stuff his paws into his ears though, as the kiln control box has been making an increasingly and alarmingly loud crackly noise as it cuts in and out. Rodger assured me that it wasn't about to go on fire, but I still think I should get an electrian's advice before the next firing.

Some of these long dishes were quite sucessful -. I have another batch underway right now, which I think (hope) are looking more confident than these first attempts at sideways bending.

I was sitting by the burn near Langhom a few weeks ago, watching the water rippling over the mossy stones and noting the colours, mossy green, browns, golds, greys, all quite beautiful in a cold March sort of way. As a result a few new glaze and slip colour tests are on their way which I hope to incorporate into the next ones.

Other new pots included some espresso cups, I liked this one - just big enough for one sheep, rather than the usual whole hill of them,

..and the new shape fatter mug. I've kept this one as I wanted to 'get to know' it through use, and I have found that I am drawn to it as it hangs on the mug hooks. This one is an entirely new design colourwise as well as shape and still has the brown handle.

Unfortunately for me I also really liked the ones which survived having had their handles slipped as well, so I shall have to get to grips with this slipping handle business.

A Spring Fling 'preview' article in D and G Life was shoved under my nose last week. Top pic features Hannah and bottom pic Allie and I doing a long dish lifting demo at last year's event. A photographer came round to do a shoot of one or two studios last year so I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised.

And for something completely different, I managed to dash into Dumfries for a couple of hours to join the Samba Sisters playing for the bikers 'Easter Egg run as they roared into the town centre. The sun shone, mostly, and the rain kept away, mostly. But the best bit was noticing this baby in a pram, not much more than around 14 months old and sitting up with wide blue eyes and rocking intently to the rythm, competely entranced.

Year of the Tiger, (crocodiles and foxes)

2010-03-04T12:02:00.001-08:00

I have been wearing a lot of different hats lately, metaphorically speaking.

However I am also genuine hat-aholic, so I rather enjoyed crocheting my tiger tail appendage for a 'Year of the Tiger' party the other week. It was great having dreadlocks for a night. I have plans for another head piece with thinner locks using French knitting rather than crochet, this time in red and black to fit in with the colours of the 'Samba Sisters'.

I was discussing the benefits for the old knitted balaclava with my textile friend Jo Gallant. We decided that this fifties and sixties piece of practical childrens' headgear has been much maligned lately and it is time that it had a come back. If we could but slip it under the fashion designers radar - reinvent it as a must have accessory. Sounds like next Autumns challenge. Maybe a few crocheted dreadlocks to cheer it up?

But I digress!

Last week Allie was helping me to extrude and put together these 'baskets'. She got the boring bit of putting on the ends, (sorry Allie), and at the weekend I got the exciting bit of adding the edges and creatures. I have a nice little extrusion which gives a lovely fat body as a basis of these crocodiles...

and foxes. I wasn't going to add creatures to so many, but I was enjoying myself and got a bit carried away.

Today Allie was in and put the feet on the baskets. We were both surprised at the extraordinarily long time this took, but when we worked out that as we had made 17 in all with 4 feet on each that was 68 feet to be added! But the feet just make them float.

I also added a few feathery outlines to the trailing edge of the eagle's jodhpurs, something I had been deliberating (and suggested by Griffin, thanks)! Yes, it was a good move - just enough to break up the severity of the outline, but not too frilly, I hope. I have incised where I will add some glazed detail later which will also change the feel ot things.

Lots of throwing last week, mugs and jugs. I have been making the same shape of mug for years. I have TRIED to change it, honestly, but people collect them and always want the original tankard style. But I am BORED with it. So fuller bellies it is, and I really like them. New shape - needs a different handle, so another challenge. The way I slip my mugs, I pour the insides, leave to firm up, dip the outsides leaving the rim as red clay and then put the handle on afterwards so that it is also in red clay and picks up the rims. Now this came about, not only having looked at old Devonshire pottery, but also because at one point I had such a bad experience with shimmering and slip flaking.

Now, years later, having avoided it and slinked around the problem, I find that I am really challenged in slipping a mug, handle and all. At least three handles split and fell off, and the weight of the handle distorted some mugs horribly so that a few sagged against their neighbours. I did throw them beautifully light and even, but perhaps TOO thin?! There is no way I am going to start getting the blow drier out for mug handles, but any suggestions would be welcome. Is my slip too wet, too thick, or what. (The ones that did survive look great though).

Rodger was definitely feeling more like his old self the other day. He made me a nice low turn table from this old swivel footstool, on which to work on my eagle seat, so that I was seeing it from the right angle from the start.

But what do the neighbours think of our washing line?

~(and just in case you are wondering, the old tee-shirts are used for soaking down the clay)~

The Eagle has landed!

2010-02-19T14:16:00.001-08:00

I got a couple of days in on my seat this week. I really love making big things, although it feels a bit indulgent. When I was at college I was forever making enormous pots. In those heady days we had maintainence grants and materials were FREE! When I set up my own pottery I had to learn to throw properly and scale down somewhat, with the occasional giant pot appearing now and then for treats. The trouble is I have got the large scale bug back, and there is so much that I want to make.

I struggled with the head. I was going for 'essence' of eagle in general, but the head was in danger of becoming a bit overworked. I had already taken it off once and re-positioned it, but today I nearly took it off again. I think I improved it by cutting out the eyes, so it has had a reprieve.

The talons presented an even greater problem. How to consolidate those wide 'legs' with some sort of representation of the talons. I thought that perhaps I could get away without feet at all but that didn't look right. My initial attempts were too small and insignificant, so I resorted to using a tube.There is something about bending an extruded tube especially with some ridges in it, that gives a great vitality.

I eventually made a special extrusion for the shape of the wing tips. Even then I ended up cutting and insetting but I do like the thick sturdy looking result.

So, nearly there. I am just lining out ideas for the glazed areas and then it will be a long slow drying out, with fingers crossed.

Meanwhile the gallery/showroom has been quite busy this week with half term holidays. When we were stock taking I put a whole lot of 'bits' of old stock in a box, not exactly seconds, but pots which have never really breathed much life and I have had no real desire even to have on display. We set up a 'sales' table, which has been going great guns. I've been topping it up every day and have just about got rid of all the poor old undesirables.
BARGAINS! I should be happy to have the money in the bank instead of cluttering up my shelves, but there is something rather depressing as well. Here I am striving for perfection, but how many people really care as long as they have a bargain!

Happy Valentine's day

2010-02-14T12:10:00.001-08:00

Happy Valentine's day. The froth on Barnbarroch Pottery coffee is becoming a legend. It looks especially good today, particulary in these grand mugs . On the left is Rodger's Chris Lewis coffee mug, and on the right is my morning coffee mug, made by Margaret Gardiner.

After a 'bitty' sort of January, ( lots of half jobs, half a kiln packed, half a load of pots slip decorated, half a brain half the time), this month seems to be heading in a more productive direction. Not that last month wasn’t busy. Just too many job jobs, such as unblocking land drains, moving logs, stock taking and other such tedious delights.

However, pots are now filling the shelves and I am even making a bit more progress on my latest seat. The base and top were none the worse for their long mouldy confinement under polythene.

The legs are two roughly triangular shaped extrusions joined back to back. I got them on and then left them to firm up pretty well before Allie and I lifted the seat into position. They seem to be supporting it quite happily, though the seat itself was lighter than the first one I made last year being a sandwich with just a couple of structural ridges between. I am hoping that it will soon fly, though more of this next time.

From a huge seat to tiny little jugs

...and little dishes made from one of the new dies I made last month. They are quite small and just take a few little fishes.

There are always a few fiddly little orders to fit in. I had a rather unexciting order for a restaurant in Glasgow of 20 tiny salt pots and tea light holders plus some tiles for their cloakrooms. The tiles are still drying slowly weighted between suction boards. But I enjoyed making this christening mug for a child with a very grand long name , (here bisc fired and waiting to be glazed).

I had promised a to let Annette have the use of the workshop for a pottery party. Annette worked with us for many years before she became involved in parenthood. Her daughter Amber is seven and it was all very girly. Amber’s idea was that they should all make models of their pets to the music of High School Musical, and it was all very pink and fluffy!

I am not sure who had an elephant as a pet.

Snow gone and shelves filling

2010-01-20T14:02:00.001-08:00

The snow has gone, the ice has melted and I have a workshop with water again, in which I can work with hands that can once again feel what they are touching. Outside everything is now a wet, grey and leafless porridge, but the days are definitely a little longer and I've made a start, and there's something to show for it. Having some extra help from Allie this month has focused my mind and together we got some dishes extruded using my new die - plus I got a batch of mugs thrown which Allie put handles on for me today. It is so encouraging to see the the shelves filling up again.

There is always an extra surprise with a new die and this time I noticed that one boat like bend gave a simple yet effective dish with little extra help.

The original idea was to curve the clay as it came out, and although I do like the long narrow flow of these dishes, I found them challenging to decorate. There is so much going on with the shape they seemed to require very little - a difficult lesson in restraint.

I tried something new with the handles on this one - splitting the tube and rejoining, to add an extra dynamic.

I unwrapped the sections of a half started seat - kept damp with regularly sprayed kitchen roll and polythene since.....LAST JULY! (There has been no time for big stuff since then). It took a while to scrape off the now mouldy and disintigrating paper towels, but remarkably it was still intact, (no cat prints or 'clumsy oaf' prints even). Over the weekend I played with several ideas for it. Whatever I had in mind last July I have moved on from. I was going to integrate an owl idea into the base. The owl was to hold up the seat section, but when I realised that the overhang was really going to be too risky I went back to the drawing board. Today I extruded some leg sections which I will use as a starting point. I think at this stage I just have to get the structure standing and then see where it can go.

I was just beginning to think that maybe ‘Secret Santa’ was lost on his way to South West Scotland, or maybe there had been an uneven number of Secret Santa participants, when on Monday a parcel, covered in an array of glorious stamps, was waiting for me on my eturn from Glasgow. So thank you VERY much to Dan for a glowing and edibly rich woodfired mug. Yumbo! I shall enjoy very much.

Aerial view of the road to Glasgow!

2010-01-10T08:10:00.000-08:00

The Loch was frozen over and by the look of the prints some brave or foolhardy souls had almost made it across to the island. Certainly the ice was pretty thick. Rodger rubbed away some snow and revealed this crack line, beautifully inlaid with snow.

Looks like the road we took to Glasgow last week, and similarly icy.

It's all so beautiful, yet it's becoming a bit of a problem. It is SO hard to get anything done. On Friday the water wasn't draining from the workshop sink. It had been dripping overnight and the pipe to the outside was frozen. What a palaver, having to drain it in several buckets, then all the red throwing and cleaning water had to be emptied by degrees. I tried pouring the first lot straight down the outside drain, but as the drain was also frozen it just sat there freezing in a lovely red frothy mess, so now I have an odd patch of red ice right outside the back door! Second attempt was down the slippery steps bucket at a time and onto the garden..

Red clay spew is not such a pretty sight on the veg patch I'm afraid.

Today the water coming into the workshop is also frozen, so instead of persisting I have been reseaching African carved stools online - found some crackers to put in my 'inspiration' folder.

I loved this Lion! I can't wait to get going now, athough I had better replenish the smaller stock first before I get too carried away.

Snow - both Distracting and Inspirational

2010-01-06T12:47:00.000-08:00

The temperature on the workshop thermometer read 8 degrees c this morning, just NOT that tempting a prospect in which to make that planned early start and knead up icy clay! Instead I got myself warm by shovelling snow paths around the the place, and when Rodger needed his medicinal walk I decided that such a glorious snowy scene was a rare treat and not to be missed.

Snow brings out such splendid patterns, our roof already an inspiration and heading mentally towards an undulating something or other.

What is it about making the first tracks - it just feels great.

The camera couldn't cope with the bright snow, but these deer tracks are worthy of the most skilled slip comber. I just stared at them in admiration. Shortly afterwards we caught a wonderful view of a fox, cat like he studied us for a while, then sat and carefully curled his tail over his paws. After a while he sat bolt upright and pounced - on something.

By the afternoon the temperature in the workshop had reached a heady 10 degrees, warm enough for some action. I kneaded a pile of balls to throw and then made the mistake of shoving my hands in hot water - ouch, the pain! Fed up with that lark I resorted to making a nice little aluminium die for a new mini dish. Small enough to extrude using the big blue, so I should be able to bend it in horizontal wiggles as it comes out, or perhaps those pan tile patterns may appear in some way....Hurrah, I have made a start!

I blinked and then, it was TWO THOUSAND AND TEN!

2010-01-04T13:54:00.000-08:00

Happy new year from Barnbarroch! Is it really ten years since I made that fire sculpture and hauled it to the top of the Muckle?! It seems like yesterday, but it also seems like ages since I have had time to even think about this blog.

Christmas and Hogmany followed hot on the heels of getting Rodger home from hospital. But today I got into the workshop for the first time in ages and pottered around tidying away the remains of Christmas. I took down the showroom twinkly lights and got rid of empty boxes, bottles and 'I'll just shove it in the workshop for now' stuff. It feels great just to have clear benches.

But it is SO cold. With the fire opened up all day, the temperature still required long johns and six upper layers. I have always found that some good music makes the room warmer, so once I had set up my (new)! ipod nano and speakers things started to feel more cosy and tempting. I brought in three sacks of clay, from the feel of them full of ice crystals, to thaw out overnight, hopefully ready to knead up by tomorrow afternoon.

Initially it is still going to be a short week, as I will have one day a week with Rodger to Glasgow, and a morning a week to Dumfries hospital clinics for his check ups, but it will be easier once the routine is established.

I was disappointed to hear from Earth and Fire the other day as I didn't get in this year. It is a pity as I really had such good feed back last summer with comments on how ' Good it was to see a new face and some completely different work', and 'Why had never done it before', and many said that I was to be sure and come again this year! It would have been good to consolidate. What I mean is that I think it may well have been advantagous to have let Midland folk have a second encounter with my work. Sometimes takes people a couple of times to consider a completely unfamiliar style.

I was quite relieved to hear a few days later that I had got in to Potfest in the Park or I would have felt rather dejected and might really have had to eat a few worms, but actually with Rodger's health an issue I am probably better off not taking on two shows so close together. They were both the highlight and the nightmare of last summer! Also Oskar said, 'Hadn't I heard - it is going to POUR this year at E and F!

Some November pots

2009-12-08T11:50:00.001-08:00

Here are some of the pots which were finished over the last few weeks. This was one of the first which I bent from side to side as it was being extruded. The trouble is that my pugmill is mounted against a wall, so it was easier to pull one way than the other, but I can hardly see myself moving it now. I enjoyed the movement the method created so I shall be having another go at this.The most recent die I made had hollow runners incorporated. I tried cutting away so that the runners are showing at either end and I attached the handle to them. Don't ask why a hammer head shark, the shape just seemed to ask for it. I have a feeling that somehow it may not be as popular an image as gentle looking penguins.

From the same die and bowed slightly is this chunky looking dish. Both it and the penguin dish are on show at the McGill Duncan Gallery Christmas show, 'Glimpses of Galloway', although to be honest I am not sure that you would get a glimpse of a penguin in Galloway. I also took along my Swimmer and Dog dish - that one really was a glimpse of Galloway, I saw her with her dog swimming out through the waves as I was having a summer swim at Rockcliffe.

Without my home grown captive photographer Rodger I had to employ the services of a professional photographer last week. With really very little trouble he managed to turn the showroom into a temporary photographic studio. I think I shall have to look into the aquisition of a big roll of paper and some device to hang it from. It is having a clean ready space to take the photos in that is always the problem. For some reason I had never thought of using the showroom, but it was far easier to clear than the conservatory, (full of plants), the workshop, (dirty and full of half made pots), a bedroom, (full of boy), or outside, (full of rain, wind and cold).

He took some shots of my dog seat and I have got them sent off to Lark books so I shall see what happens with that one. he also took the top three shots. I am not at all sure about their 'floating' in white space quality, it feels a bit weird.

It is good to be half back to thinking about pots and the pottery, though it is still on a rather half time basis. I brought Rodger back from hospital on Friday. Already three days at home are helping to improve his well being, but it will be a long slow recovery with trips to Glasgow and Dumfries twice a week for the next few months.

Full kilns

2009-11-13T14:17:00.001-08:00

Two good days in the workshop. On Tuesday I had been struggling a bit with slip decorating the work which had been waiting for over three weeks in the damp cupboards, and which I had been struggling to build up a head of enthusiastic steam for. Then I remembered that actually there was a lot of matt glazing to be done. I realised that I was needing a rather more 'mindless job' at the time. The designs had already been lined out, so initially it was just a matter of outlining in black wax. Once I had made a start it then became much easier think about the colours, (mainly trailed between the black outlines).

It was very good for me to have Allie coming in to help out today, she helped me to focus on the jobs in hand and together we did loads of clear glazing and got the kiln packed.

There is now enough glazed work for about two and a half kilns, so I feel thoroughly cheered up as far as work and stock is concerned. I had forgotton how much I had got started before the break. The trouble with breaks is that it is too easy to forget rather a lot. For example I seem to have TWO large buckets marked 'Matt Clear'. Was there something wrong with one of them... or did I mix up two by mistake... I have had to run a test of both of the said buckets in this kiln and delay the final dip of my matt glazed pieces until I can confirm.

What a treat - I had missed the opening of the exhibition at McGill Duncan and so had missed most of Ron Philbeck's work there. Quite an unexpected delight therefore to receive this surprise present from Hannah yesterday. Clean washing line tea for me today!

Home

2009-11-09T12:38:00.000-08:00

It’s good to be home, and a couple of characters were just delighted to have me back!

I don't think that I have been away from the pottery for so long in years - a whole 17 days. It has been an anxious and strange time, living in a hospital room and being companion, moral support, clothes washer, errand fetcher and telephone reporter. I have never felt so tired doing what felt like nothing really! I got back last week, (leaving Rodger frail but progressing in the right direction), and spent Friday catching up - mail, getting a swine flu jab, having a temporary filling put in my broken tooth and replying to a host of telephone answer messages.

I have become the owner of a very handsome apple laptop computer - a present from my exceedingly kind sister and brother who wanted to DO something to help! I have never had my OWN computer before, the home one is a 'family' computer and somehow very much Rodger's. I actually think that I may even become a little more literate and less afraid of them as this is just MINE to play with or break, or whatever. As a result of my new toy I did do a bit of photo sorting while I was away and I got some new images onto the web site - long overdue.

It is disappointing that though I made a lot of new work this year, I don't appear to have a particularly good record of much of it. My photographer in chief has been ill, and our lad's bedroom turned 'photographic studio’ is back in use as his bedroom/office again.

This is one of the 'studio' shots which Rodger did manage to take of the bird seat. Lark Books have just written and invited me to send some images for a new publication ‘animal inspired pottery’. I’ll have to work out what to do for that one as it would be nice to send something.

I’ll be up and down to Glasgow every two or three days over the next few weeks but I did try and get into the workshop today. It was SO COLD from lack of heating, the old granite walls take a lot to warm up again. I got a biscuit kiln packed and it's on tonight so tomorrow should be cheerier and more tempting. There are still some unfinished pots lurking in the damp cupboard, I’ll get them out tomorrow and try to remember where I was going.

Distracted decorating

2009-10-15T14:02:00.001-07:00

I eventually managed to get the last of the salad bowls decorated on Wednesday. It was difficult to focus, as my mind was rather more in Glasgow with Rodger. I had hoped to do some new designs but I wasn't feeling in a creative enough space so in the end I did some variations on old themes. My Father had come over the afternoon before and was a there with supper ready when I got home from Glasgow. He spent Wednesday morning sitting in the workshop with me doing his tapestry to keep me company. His presence was very calming and stopped me jumping up and down checking my mobile phone for possible messages from the hospital!
Fox and foxgloves in a different layout and one with the chasing cats.
Today it was mugs and jugs, which needed handles on and then slip decorating. Thank goodness for my tried and tested 'Sheep on Criffel' design - easy to do as I have made so many of them, and they need no extra concentration.
I should get them finished off tomorrow and then I will go back up to Glasgow. Inigo is going to keep the showroom open for limited hours. He had a trial run on Tuesday and although he had a few people through he didn't sell anything. I think he was quite disappointed not to get a go at wrapping up a giant seat or some such exotic object!

At the weekend Oskar came up and we had the the most delightful walk out to Rough Island over the causeway. What a great day for Rodger's last bit of 'freedom'!

The Hard Rock & a rocky time ahead.

2009-10-07T13:40:00.001-07:00

The Hard Rock prizes went down really well. We watched the event at the weekend and here is my stalwart helper Allie on the ride and the run, coming in as first local woman! I cycled in this event last year but I did start to get a bit worried about injuries - and the more I worried the more I fell off. I now wear a ridiculous amount of body armour and don't look anything like as cool as Allie, but as a self emplyed potter with no personal insurance I reckon I just have to put up with looking like a medieval knight. As a child I always wanted to be one anyway so nothing has changed there.

I had a large throwing session, I didn't mean to make quite so much but the clay was JUST right and I got rather carried away. I have been meaning to throw some salad bowls for ages as I've had none in the showroom all summer.
I'd also run out of tri-vases, (great for people who can't arrange flowers very well, like me). Sometimes they are horrendous to throw but the clay being just perfect makes so much difference.At the same time I'm half way through a group of extruded dishes. I had a go at bending a dish sideways as it was being extruded. It was a bit tricky because the pugmill is so close to the wall, one side was easier than the other. But I do like the effect and I think it has potential.
In between all this making Allie unpacked the big kiln of bisc, but now there is no room anywhere for anything. I will have to finish off the decorating before we can glaze anyway so maybe we should have just left it all in the kiln... but then we have traffic jam problems, (and I have a pretty big workshop)! All the shelves and all the tables are covered and the day seems to have been spent moving things around.

I usually try to keep this blog pretty much to pottery related topics, but the truth is I am in a bit of a panic, trying to get so much made before Rodger's bone marrow transplant. He is going in to hosptial next Tuesday and will be there for a month or longer depending on how it goes. I will be taking the next few weeks off and staying in Glasgow where possible. I do anticipate a pretty difficult few months ahead, with juggling care and keeping home and work ticking over so I probably won't be posting too much, though Rodger has plans to write a transplant blog. ..if he is up to it. Watch this space!

Cat's in the dog house (and dog's away)

2009-10-01T11:49:00.001-07:00

Some of the results from the last kiln. Of course I always see where things could have been better, but I was pleased with the life in these ducks.

The lines of the underwater swimmer and dog worked pretty well, though I could have done with maybe a little contrast in the slip colour where the underwater shapes are- lighter or darker perhaps.

I finished a few commissions - two pasta dishes featuring a particular pair of cats.....Not exactly Mungojerry and Rumpleteaser but I must have had T S Eliot in the back of my mind.

Also out of the kiln were the prizes for the 'Hard Rock Challenge' this weekend. (Cycling, and running duathlon). When I went through them to check that all was present and correct, to my horror I noticed that in the Junior category, one was inscribed '4th'.
ER, I wasn't asked to make any 4th prizes, was I? Aaargh, somehow as I was counting, 'four 1sts', (done,tick), four 2nds', (done,tick), all fine - but when it came to the fourth 3rd, I must have written FOURTH on it!
What to do? Well, low temperature enamel has saved the day, enough at least in the short term for some poor child not to be very offended on Saturday!
A difficult birth plate - Ruby, Lilies and Poppies round the edge. How to be inspired by the motif of a ruby? I struggled with this one, but at least the ruby has achieved a sort of glow.
Meet 'Extra', who is now in the dog house. Some poor customers spent nearly 40 minutes choosing a wedding present last Saturday. I wrapped it up and we were just chatting as they were about to leave, when who should come jumping up onto the counter to say hello.
Crash! I was mortified and most embarrassed and they were bitterly disappointed. Did I have another one just the same....? No such luck. She loves to say hello to customers, and has never broken anything before. I will certainly never balance pots on the counter again when she is around!

More dishes and a treat for the kiln

2009-09-22T13:24:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I wrote a post. Lots has been going on, but I have been pushed for time and in particular computer time. We have been sharing internet time with our son who moved back home this summer, and suddenly getting on line has been rather more complicated. A wireless router is on its way so that should help matters.
I had a go with the new dish die. It worked a treat, no tearing, but perfect edges. Whether it was the nice new slicing blades in the pugmill, that the clay was just a perfect contstituency, or that the die was designed with skillful perfection, I don't know. I am inclined to believe it was the latter!

I needed to make another hollow handle extrusion with a narrower bore. I was still using my first hollow die, which was pretty clumsily made.

Rodger has been mending the roof of the kiln. It has always been cooler at the top, but lately it has been getting ridiculous, anything higher than half way up was invariably underfired. I had made a whole load of ceramic buttons with the idea that he would line the underside of the roof with ceramic fibre. After cutting away the rusty metal sheeting and shovelling out the pathetic amount of insulation chips there was plenty of room to fill in the space above the arch with fibre - a much easier solution.

It was a typical Rodger solution to use the old toaster to hold the bung bricks together. (It goes with the hotpoint spray booth)! A new lease of life to our 30 year old kiln. The next glaze which will be the test but it certainly looks happier.