The week's shipyard and other images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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....

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'

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.