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.

Year of the Tiger, (crocodiles and foxes)

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!

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

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

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!

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

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!