Table, comets and a glimpse of Royalty

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.

A snug fit and some sanity issues.

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.

A busy Easter

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

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.