CatStrand

Starry starry night, paint your palette blue and grey... Makes for a chilly but brisk walk out this evening, beautiful day though.

Some pictures from the CatStrand exhibition, sorry this one seems to be a bit blurry but on the left is one of Bea's paintings, then my pots, then a wall of Lizzie's work.

Tall skinny jugs and candlestick. I'm really pleased with the candlesticks, when I went in on Friday evening I was surprised by how strong they were in the room. Personally I am pretty pleased with the work I have in there, I know it isn't the biggest most prestigious gallery in the world but it's a lovely place and I think if you're going to do something you may as well do it well or not bother. I had worked hard trying to make things that were new and that would be different to work that people may have already seen. There isn't much space in there really so I tried to put in bolder, stronger pots. Hope that makes sense.

A couple of smaller things to go in the cabinet so as not to scare everyone off with big prices.

I have just delivered the Twelve Pots to the McGill Duncan Gallery. They look great all together, I really hope the artists are pleased with them and I hope the visitors to the gallery enjoy them too. I hope people understand that the reasoning behind it wasn't to have lots of people try to make copies of my pots but to let other artists do something of themselves with my materials. The show opens on saturday morning, 11am till 1 if you are in the area.

CatStrand Christmas shopping evening this coming thursday from 5pm till 8pm, locally produced arts and crafts, gifts and cards with, mulled wine and live musical entertainment.

Corsock village craft fair is this coming sunday, the highlight if the festive season of fairs I think. Small and intimate but full of fabulous things to eat and drink and buy, held in Corsock village hall.

Weekend.

Dodgy picture of a whole bunch of red kites in the sky over Phil's gallery, they fly over every evening on their way to roost, there were about 30 of them. Thankfully he takes better pictures than I do.

Phil has a fab wee gallery in Laurieston village, he's usually open every sunday so pop in and see him if you are in the area on a sunday. This weekend myself and Amanda joined him for a Winter exhibition of photos, pots and glass. We have had a great time together even with my aftermath of swine flu jag not so wellness.

A few quick shots of the inside of the gallery. Lovely large bright space. Lucky man.

Thank you Phil and Louise for your hospitality and constant supply of tea and sleeping remedies.

Some picture from the CatStrand exhibition to come tomorrow.

Weekend busyness

Tomorrow heading over to Laurieston village to set up a show in Phil McMenemy's gallery with him, me and Amanda Simmons. It should be good, we usually have a good laugh together and hopefully we'll get some visitors too. For those of you who like my pots and can come and visit you may well find some good bargains in the sale area. You'll have to call in to see what's what.

In the evening I am also heading to New Galloway to the opening of "Willow, Canvas and Clay" which is at the CatStrand, a show which includes Lizzie Farey, Bea Last and erm, me again. I don't really enjoy private views, I don't mind it if it's for someone else's work but find it very uncomfortable when mine is involved. It's one of those deep breaths and walk tall moments.

So hopefully I'll see one or two of you over the weekend if you are in the area.

Make Craft Count

Craft Matters is a Crafts Council initiative to highlight the importance of crafts in people's lives. It believes that craft matters and it wants to show that it matters to thousands of people across the UK. The Heritage Crafts Association supports this initiative in the field of heritage crafts.In the next few months, the Crafts Council will be posting the names of all its signatories on its website so that it can demonstrate the real support for craft. It wants to launch the new webpage with over 1,000 signatures, so please ask your friends and colleagues to show that craft matters to them too.To sign up to the statement 'I'm signing up to Make Craft Count because Craft Matters to me', visit www.craftscouncil.org.uk/craftmatters.

Wet weekend

A very wet weekend and I just look at the forecast for tomorrow and guess what, it's going to rain! Excellent, just what we need right now. It does however call for some comfort eating, toasted muffins with blackcurrant jam, Ginger cake and hot chocolate eaten from a new Margaret Brampton plate which Christine gave me for my birthday, a soda fired plate from the Coromandel penninsula of New Zealand, a Ron Philbeck washing line plate, a Doug Fitch mug and a H Mc mug and surrounded by a Paul Young candlestick and some James Hake tealight holders on a Mr J oolala tile. I think that's everyone present name checked.

We went for a squelchy walk in the rain on sunday, one of our regular walks was impossible, the path should be just behind that big tree on the right of the fence line there. We haven't been nearly as badly affected as the Cumbrian region has but there is some quite incredible flooding in places. New Galloway where my cubs meet was a little island on friday and you couldn't get in or out of the village. The force of the elements can be frightening.

Some of the McGill Duncan gallery pots are finished now with the rest of them in the kiln for a bisque as we speak. Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze them all and all the pots for the upcoming CatStrand show all in for a glaze firing tomorrow. I always over estimate what the kiln can take.

I've been sieving glaze today and found myself singing this little ditty as I was working:

I hate sieving glaze,

Oh I hate sieving glaze,

Eee aye endio,

I hate sieving glaze.

Amanda thinks I've lost the plot for that, she may well be right.

A bit of this a bit of that

A bit of a Spanish inspired bird-dragon thing.

A bit Gaudi-esque.

Oh and some little birds. We are still here, there is a lot of water around but we are on a bit of a hill so so far so good. I have never seen as much water around as there is at the moment though. Paul is back too. I just spent the morning with 80 hyper children and an enormous amount of lego and electric lego at that. This explains the crazy headache and exhaustion that has just had me in bed for a few hours. Keep warm and dry all.

Big Cat

As it says on the label it is indeed at big cat!

A few more Barcelona pictures for you, and look at that sunshine. Ho Hum it certainly isn't like that here today. Gale force winds and flooding galore across Dumfries and Galloway. It was horrid driving back from Dumfries tonight and poor Paul has been sent north this evening to Peterhead which is about a five hour drive in good conditions.

The Ceramics Museum is housed in this building in Barcelona, up glorious wide winding staircases with polished handrails, the sort it would be wonderful to glide down in an elegant ballgown to meet your handsome prince at the bottom and dance out of the doors and under the stars. Old romantic - me - nah!

Slip sliding away.

I finally got around to slipping the big candlesticks today. It's taken me a while to decide what to put on them, I should also have taken the time to work out how to hold them, pour them, shake them, put them safely down before I started. A trial run would have been useful.

Three plates with fat rims. That band just around the bird marks the start of the rim, it's hard to tell in the pictures.

Just black on white or vice versa, no colours on these. I like them.
Had a chat to Mr. Fitch this afternoon, we put the world to rights, discussed the finer points of on line scrabble and generally helped me to calm down and not explode today, maybe tomorrow (though hopefully not as I'm going to visit someone tomorrow and it wouldn't be good to flip while I'm there) I seem to have lost all patience since I turned 32. Is that it? Is it all down hill from now on? I usually have a slow burning fuse but heaven help you if I get to the end, at the moment I seem to be getting wound up at the drop of a hat.

So away over to Glentrool tomorrow to the city of midges during the summer months, hopefully they have all gone on holiday to warmer climates now. Going to try to give Andy a hand with his kiln building and hopefully learn some handy tricks while I am there.

Peek-a-boo

What have we here?

Oh, an owl!

On my finger! A felt hoolet, fancy that. Sweet wee thing don't you think? Beautifully made and the shop I found it in well I could have had her pack up the whole lot and send it back to me. It was in the rough guide book we had for Barcelona, and being the only crafty thing mention in the city centre I thought we'd seek it out. Down a tiny narrow back street we found "Almacen Marabi". A shop full of beautiful felt creatures, some animals, some people, felt books with felt finger puppets tucked inside sleeves in the book, mobiles, some sculptures were huge, one rhino was maybe four foot long. It was a treat and I think if you go to Barcelona you must seek her out, Mariela is her name I believe, Argentinian originally but now living there in Barcelona.

A very busy day today, Trevor Leat came this afternoon to work on his pot. He's a basket maker in his real life and every year makes the huge and beautiful wickerman for the wickerman festival which is held just down the road here which is where I think the original film was filmed. Speaking of which I heard that Edward Woodward of wickerman fame died today. I have a great joke about his name but it looses something in the typing, ask me when I next speak to you.

Also Amanda Simmons came by this morning, I had a couple of new pots for her to work on, it's always great seeing what Amanda will do. The problem is though that she is getting just too good at it really, I'm going to have to watch her!

I did something dim last night, packed the kiln and set it for a very slow bisque, ha! I hadn't planned on it being as slow as it was. I went in this morning to see it was at 89 degrees, of course I panicked thinking it was broken, it should have been finished and at about 600 cooling down by then. However when I checked the program it said 40 degrees an hour to 80 and the 1 degree an hour up to700. Now that would be slow!

Brighton Made09 Fair Offer. . .

Next weekend is a show in Brighton called Made09, I'm not doing it but my good friend Annabel Faraday should be but she has hurt her back and can't go. So she is offering, with the organisers agreement, her stand to another ceramicist. Here is what she says:

"The organisers would be happy to take another ceramicist in my place. I'm offering the stand at half the price I paid (ie £200 instead of £400), with the added bonus that they wouldn't have to go through the selection process. The fair is very well publicised and attended and will be held on Fri/Sat/Sun 20/21/22 Nov (Fri 11-7.30, Sat, 10 - 6, Sun 10 - 5), with a private view on the 19th from 6.00 - 8.30pm. The stand I am allocated is in a prime spot - I can't bear not to be doing it!!!! The (prestigious) venue is The Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome, Church Street, BN 1 1UE.
The website for this event is www.made09.co.uk"

So can you get there? Do you have the stock? Would you like to have this fantastic opportunity? If you want to take Annabel up on the offer you can contact her through the details on the "order a pot" page of her website. I hope someone can make the most of this.

Wet and then sunny weekend.

It rained a lot on friday night, and blew a bit of a gale and apparently we had a thunder storm too. I woke in the night hearing what I knew without a shadow of a doubt to be the kiln shed blowing down. Then Paul told me it had been thunder and lightening for an hour and what had woken me had been the last thunder crash. Phew!

We had an aborted attempt to get to one of our favourite forests for a walk on saturday morning, three roads we tried were blocked by flooding! I've never seen anything like it. We came home and walked from here instead. I found some great leaves, and it was while I was running about getting slightly excited by the colours and different sizes of leaves on the ground that Paul pointed out that I sometimes remind him of a three year old.

This afternoon Adam Booth architectural blacksmith came to the workshop to decorate his pot for the McGill Duncan exhibition. Another approach very different to any of my ways of working. Two more to go, oh and still mine to do too, they are coming together though now.

Friday Frenzy

Barcelona shoe shop, any colour any size as long as you want this style! The whole shop was just like this table. I was amazed, we walked past a few times, it became a point of reference as landmarks along with the shop on the corner with the underwear that looked like it wouldn't keep you very warm through a Scottish winter.

I unpacked a glaze firing this morning, I took no pictures other than this one and promptly packed it all up and sent it away to various places, Gracefield Arts Centre, Gallerytop and the Dartington Cider Press Centre. I got two big chargers out safely, the first in months, one was one of my new clay samples, the other my normal clay with a lot of grog in it, both dried for about three months and very very slowly and fired very very very slowly too. So which part of that was the key to success I don't know but maybe if I do all of the above all the time then the things may start coming through the kiln in one piece again.

Phil McMenemy came to slip his pot today for the McGill Duncan show, which is mentioned in this new edition of Dumfries and Galloway Life magazine. It's always fun having Phil around, never a dull moment.

I've been trying to make big candlesticks for fat candles. No idea how on earth I will be decorating them yet but watch this space. I think this weekend will be another of weekend working, there is a lot to do though most of the pressure for the year is off now, I just have one big show at the CatStrand to finish work for and then a couple of lovely local fairs and the do with Phil and Amanda and the McGill Duncan show and I think that's about it. Oh and a couple of orders to finish and some Christmas presents to make once I get my head round the idea of Christmas which will be a few weeks away yet I think.

Chilly wednesday

Doors and gates, we don't have many like this over here! I do have a bit of a thing I realise looking back at pictures from other trips to places, about door ways and gates. Lots of images of them crop up in my albums and sketchbooks. I am not aware of them creeping into my work at all, not consciously anyway.

A tile from the Ceramic Museum in Barcelona. This was about two foot tall I would thick and about half an inch thick.

Another guest decorator today, this time in the form of John Threlfall who is a wildfowl painter. I haven't really met John properly before though he lives not too far away and I am very aware of his wonderful work. We got to chatting as you do and discovered he was brought up in his early years about 6 miles from where I was in Bolton and moved from there to the same street as Paul lived on with his family in Sheffield. Small world - though I still wouldn't like to paint it.

I have been busy making even with my visitors but I don't seem to be getting anything finished. It's like that sometimes isn't it, things in every stage except completion. I find it frustrating because I can't see the progress so easily. A lot of the things I'm trying to make at the moment are made from more than one bit too ie lids and two bits joined so it looks like far more 'things' than there actually is.

More Gaudi

A roof at Parc Guell, I love these lids on the buildings, they I think may find themselves as lids on some pots. . .

I love all the work that is going on inside the Sagrada Familia, that is just as interesting to me as the building itself. There is a museum underneath with scale models and his experiments for finding the right angles to position the roof struts in to make them capable of bearing the load. It's fascinating.

Another roof, in Parc Guell again - how does that stay up there exactly? Some of the constructions look almost impossible. We were laughing imagining the response you'd get if you took plans of this to a council here for planning permission today, you'd get laughed out of town.

Another guest decorator today, this time my friend Hazel Campbell, painter extraordinaire and general great lady. Hazel's first introduction to slip trailing. I think it went very well.

I tried to take a picture of the sky this afternoon, I was rather taken with the grey/blue/purpley colour but this photo tells you next to nothing. The flocks of birds were just settling in the trees there as I watched but by the time I got the camera they had settled themselves comfortably for the night.

22 to minus 3

We woke to a shockingly cold but utterly beautiful sight this morning, a chill minus three outside and thick frost and the low sun. Compared to the days of 22 degrees C that we had last week in Barcelona - yes that was answer number one folks, it was somewhat nippy.

So many pictures as you can imagine. It's hard going from here to a big city, there's something everywhere that is so different to my everyday views that I find it hard not to stand and stare agog all the time, I have to be careful not to get myself thumped sometimes. For certain on our list of things to do were visits to Parc Guell and the Sagrada Familia both Gaudi lovers heaven.

The church is a lot further on than it was ten years ago when I last visited but there is still an unending amount of work to do it seems. I'd be almost sad if they did ever finish it because the whole work in progress is fascinating to see, I love seeing the moulds being made and the highly skilled crafts people at work there swinging from windows or measuring precise and accurate angles on giant blocks of stone. It was very busy, so many people walking around just going snap snap snap with their cameras and not appearing to actually look. I tried to draw things but there's just too much there so many we stood and gawped.

Even the shadow of the unglazed windows on the pillars is great though my pictures do it no justice what so ever.

Ceramics Museum? Of course we went there! Tasty! In a way I thought it was better than the V&A in that each piece had so much more space and you could really look at just one without being distracted too much by it's neighbours. Some of the pots had mirrors placed so you could see their bottoms, always attractive to a potter. There are plenty more pictures here and I'm sure you'll see some Spanish influences in the pots to come too.

La Boqueria, the large fruit and veg and fish and cheese and bread and tastynesses of all variety market in the centre of the city is just colour and shape and smell and noise vibrant. You could spend a whole morning wandering around there.

So it's been back to work properly today, lots still on the list to be done. I'm getting through the orders though. This afternoon though while listening to my BBC Radio 4 dose I heard this great programme, part of a series that I believe runs the whole of the week, "Whatever happened to the teapots?" A whole fifteen minutes about clay and pots, more Radio 4, more! I think you can only listen to it from Britain but I could be wrong there.