As you requested

Today I was tempted to try to throw, I'm getting itchy fingers. I didn't though, maybe tomorrow, I looked at the clay that Paul pugged for me the other night but it just made me feel a bit uncomfortable even thinking about it. That's probably a sign. Instead I got out a lettering book that I've had knocking around a while waiting to have some attention paid to it. I spent a few hours practising letters and lines. I started in pencil and then thought I'd use the old calligraphy pen that I'd brought from home especially. Knowing the ink cartridge in it would be dried out I even brought another with me. Unfortunately I didn't check the size and brought one twice as big and so of course it didn't fit. Then I had a brain wave and attempted to fill the empty cartridge with the bottled ink I have using a tiny squeezy bottle with a fine nozzle on the end. This worked spectacularly - badly. Black in blooming everywhere. Oops! Then I discovered a flat paint brush that I had at work and had a play with that instead. Just behind the papers there you can see one of my recent acquisitions, a lovely Blogger Andrew mug, I'm very much enjoying using it. It's especially good for me at the moment as it's not got a belly and most of my mugs have bellied or tapering at the top forms and when you've got a neck and shoulders that don't bend and move as easily as they might a bellied mug is not your friend. Thanks Andrew, I do like it very much.

Here's some majolica for you as you requested. I must have been at Jason's for probably six months before I did any painting on the tin glaze and where as the slip trailing just grabbed me felt great this I found much harder. It's an odd feeling. I hadn't done very much work with a brush at this point at all, you can probably tell. The bisque pots are glazed in the tin glaze and then you paint on the top with the oxides. Jason mixes his raw oxides with gum arabic (I think) before they are ground with water and painted onto the powdery surface. You have to know what the mark is you are going to make and do it smoothly and quickly as the moment you touch the wet brush tip to the surface it sucks the water from the brush and if you're not careful you end up with a thick blob in one place and unable to move it around at all. Once the pots are decorated too moving them is to be done oh so carefully as the decoration will smudge with a misplaced thumb. Jason had worked at Aldermaston with Alan Caiger-Smith which is where he learnt the majolica work.

I practised for ages on newspaper with iron oxide first. Jason tried to teach me the marks that each different brush type is made for but I'm afraid it really didn't stick in my head at all. I think I was always just a bit too wary with it. It never seemed to flow at all for me. These two plates would have been among the first I decorated. Jason paints lots of fish but mine always to me had more of a look of slugs about them.

These pierced mugs were fun, I've made them a few times since but not for probably four years or so, maybe I should work on them for Potfest. I want to make something different but I'm going to be limited scale wise to small things just to not risk myself hurting myself so maybe these would be good. I've a couple of slipware ones from the same time on the shelf here too. I saw a few salt glaze pierced pots in Germany too. Right that's it, they're going on the list, it's fate, they're cropping up too much to be ignored any longer. The Bartmans will have to wait I think but they are mythering me from the German trip too you know sometimes you just have to do something to get it out of your system.

Back to the subject in hand though. These small cups and saucers, this apple and the roses at the top would have been late 2002 and the apple one certainly went through the big wood kiln, the rose I think was electric fired. The apple pattern is one Jason had been working with for a few years and it was a good way of him showing me how the different brushes and strokes can be built up to make a pattern. They are still rather staid I think, like I say it never felt natural holding a brush, they look a bit stiffly done. Maybe I should have given it more chance, I did paint a lot of things, an awful lot of things but they just weren't ever as successful as the slip was. They are sweet little cups and saucers though. These show how thin you could throw that there Fremington clay too, it was very strong, I could slip pots made that thin in the Fremington, if I tried that with the clay I use now they'd be in a little heap on the bench in no time at all.

Not many of the tin glaze pots for you there I'm afraid but it gives you a taste. Next time I'm at Jason's I'll see if there's any more hanging around and get some more pictures.

No new ones yet so here's some oldies instead

Today I have been back in my workshop and it felt good. It's long time since I was able to be there for more than a couple of minutes just popping in and out. I do love my little space and I know how very lucky I am to have it. I looked for a long while before I came upon it, it was fairly easy around this area at that time to find big cold draughty falling apart barns if that was what you wanted. Not so easy to find a comfortable place to work that was affordable and within relatively easy travelling distance and if it's not going to be somewhere that you enjoy being in then you're not going to want to go there everyday. WASPS are just converting some buildings in Kirkcudbright into studio spaces, that's about 6 miles from here and though I do think it will be great to have more good spaces available around the region for artists and craftspeople to work in it does seem to be an awful lot in one small town, 16 or 17 I think. Anyway as I say it is hard to find somewhere good and walking down the way today (cycling is still off for a while, unless I get a huge rear view mirror maybe) I was excited to be heading back into my space after about three and a half weeks I think it's been. It was a good feeling.

The article above is from May / June of Craft&Design Magazine, the new issue for July / August is out in a reputable newsagents near you now.

Although I have been at work I have not been potting. I'm trying to be careful and not run before I can walk. I spent the day sort of pottering around, tidying up from the Germany trip as the slip covered boxes and buckets and pots were all still sitting unloved in my workshop. I slowly sorted them all out and put the place almost back to rights, packed a half dozen pots to go down to London and then walked home again just before a torrent of wet stuff came out of the sky. We haven't had a good proper rain here for weeks and weeks. The place is so incredibly dry and lets face it we're just not used to that here. I love that smell when you get a good rain after a long dry spell, very evocative. Right now it's pouring down, blowing a hooie and feeling rather chilly.

During last week as I was mooching around the house trying not to annoy Paul too much as he was trying to work I came upon a box of photos from my time working with Jason. It gives you an idea how long ago that is when I say box of photos, physical things of the sort that you used to take and then have to get developed. It's an enormous change in the way we do things isn't it. I've always taken lots and lots of photographs, I have albums full of the things documenting all sorts of weird and wonderful and down right dull and boring events. Anyway when I found them I thought (rather needing mundane jobs to keep me occupied) that I would scan and file them digitally as I'd got to send some somewhere just now anyway so I could kill two birds with one stone. So the two bowls at the top there, slip trailed cereal bowls, they are from the very first batch of pots I made at Jason's pottery which would have been October 2001. I think the bird and defiantly the two sgraffito ones are from that same batch of pots too. I had never decorated any pots in my life until that point, I was scared out of my wits about the idea at the time.

I moved up here to take up a place with Jason as his apprentice, gave up a job and my flat etc etc and moved 200 or so miles to a place where I knew no-one other than my mum and dad and had met Jason once for about half an hour or so, the chap I was going to spend the next twelve months working with which turned into more like two years in the end. For me at that time it was a hell of a thing to do, a huge decision though I knew I had to grab the opportunity and a massive change in my life. Now I know it was in fact the best thing I ever did, then it felt like utter madness. Many people told me just that back in the place and job I was leaving behind, I lost a lot as a result but in the long run I gained so much more and learned things I would never have done if I had stayed where I was and looking back I just had to do it. I could only feasibly take up the place because I could move in with my mum and dad, they'd upped sticks and shifted about a year earlier. Apples and bread was the starting wage, home grown apples and bread baked in Jason's wood fueled oven.

So suddenly here I was in very rural south west Scotland after a flat in a densely populated, big town in north west England. For the last year at uni I'd made stoneware pots, I'd been looking at lots of Eastern pottery, lots of wood fired anagama type pots and functional stoneware that Alex McErlain used to show us at uni which was from his time at Winchcombe. All of these things were for the most part un-decorated, maybe a splash of glaze or oxide. I do remember fiddling with some sgraffito for a little while at uni, there must be some pictures of that somewhere now I come to think about it. So going to Jason's was a bit of a departure. I knew I wanted to make pots but at that point I still hadn't found my "thing".

So it's down to Alex that I make pots, thank you Alex! And then it's done to Jason that I make slipware, thank you Jason! What a pair of fantastic men, I don't think they have ever met each other but they both introduced me to things which have in no small way shaped my life.

These jugs, they look a bit odd looking back on them but I am very fond of them. I wonder where they are now? This sgraffito and slip trail jug would have been towards the end of 2001 or spring 2002 I think. I made loads of jugs, all different sizes. Jason would show me a shape and then I'd make it and make it and make it until I could get it right and then I'd make some more.

This is a biggish cup and saucer, about 12 or 14cm wide, I made some tiny wee ones too, dainty little hold your little finger out while you drink sort of size and all around spring to summer 2002 I would guess.

Lots of plates too, we were using Fremington clay which was on the one hand beautiful, lovely colour, very smooth, makes a lovely glaze, on the other hand horribly annoying especially for plates as it would 'S' crack all the flipping time. It was a bugger for that.

But we made lots of plates. Jason was making a lot of commemorative plates at the time both in the slipware and the majolica. I'll show you some of my poor attempts at painting majolica another time maybe. Most of these pots would have come through the electric kiln there. Jason's work is all wood fired but as I was right at the beginning of learning he wanted me to see the results as soon as possible so that I could see how things worked or didn't work and his wood fired kiln is a bit of a beast and now working on his own it takes him a year of making to fill it so I wouldn't have seen things for ages and ages after I'd made them.

We would mix the Fremington clay with silica sand to make it suitable for making oven dishes with. Ah that was so not my favourite job, standing in one of the barns sieving sand, I will never forgive the man for making me do that, I hated that job and I have told him so on no small number of occaisions. He always laughs. Anyway one time we mixed and pugged a huge batch of oven clay and I made dozens and dozens of these lidded casseroles, this was the smallest size, it's about 14cm high. They were a lovely fat pleasing shape, there was a sgraffito elephant one too. Things that I wouldn't do at all now, not in such a trying to make it realistic way anyway. I must do some more of the white trailing on the white slip, I did a couple of big fat mugs earlier in the year with it, I thought it had potential and there's three jugs sitting on the shelf at work waiting for firing I noticed today and the whiskers on the big cat are reminding me again.

Well I hope that scratches the itch of needing to see some pots for some of you. It's good to revisit every now and again. Maybe I'll look out some college pots for you next though they might frighten you as some where so very awful, or maybe some from the early days of me working on my own or some more of the sgraffito and majolica from Jason's. How about you choose? Let me know which you'd prefer and I'll do my best to oblige as it may be a while longer till there's any new ones through from me.

You know I'm feeling better when...

You know I'm starting to feel more myself when I start taking pictures again. I've been walking up and down the road a bit the last week, I still can't believe how much impact (no pun intended) a relatively minor (in the grand scheme of things) accident can have on all the things you take so much for granted. Last week I could walk oh all of about a quarter of a mile, if I was lucky, before my legs went to jelly and my arms detached from their sockets. It was messy and Paul got sick of having to pick my arms up off the floor for me. Anyway this afternoon I took myself out for a walk down to Threave it's not far, a National Trust place and it has a good cafe so my reward of course was a cup of tea and a scone, very civilised. I met a charming elderly lady there who's on holiday from Manchester who now knows my life story after questioning me in depth and I know all about her and her grand children and the caravan at Sandgreen.

The cow are ever so inquisitive, but their tongues are really rough, just as I took this picture this wee one licked the camera and my arm. Nice.

Here are a few more images from Germany for you too.

This is Tim and Clare looking at the pots of a Dutch man who lives in France whose name I can't remember. Rather nice pots, slipware, some quite gentle and some blatantly mad but good mad. His actually stand was lovely too, very attractive and showed the pots of beautifully.

Stephan Bang regularly does the shows in Britain, salt glaze, very lovely forms, very neat and just so. Lovely pots.

Again I can't remember the name of the people on this stand but it was slip trailed and it made me laugh so there you go.

This was the stand of Charlotte Bohmer, she lives in the town, Pollie and Garry stayed with Charlotte and her family while we were there.

I think you have had all my Germany photos now, I'll just have to be fit enough to go back to work soon or else what will I show you next? There are probably some more pot pictures that I haven't shared yet so I'll have a check. In the meantime the sun is shining and it's pizza for dinner.

PS I should have mentioned this earlier but this weekend if you are in the Nottingham area is the Earth and Fire show at Rufford Country Park. It's always a great place to go and have a wander around, loads of potters to see and a beautiful place to boot. I'm not showing there this year (probably a good thing in hindsight after the last couple of weeks) but maybe next year, we'll just have to wait and see. It is definitly worth a visit if you are around, it started today and is on till sunday.

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Well never have my accounts, my CV and my website been so up to date. The boredom has driven me to doing all the things that I will usually gladly put off in favour of almost anything else. So today I give to you, courtesy of Gus at Galloway On Line...

My newly revamped website at

www.hannahmcandrew.co.uk

This has been in the planning since January, it takes me forever and three days to get it all together. I wanted it to be simple and not fussy and to tell people what they wanted to know so hopefully it does that. I think I've managed to remove a lot of the old clutter and I like the way it looks now, I hope you do too. There is a form on the contact page for you so you can let me know what you think and if you're not already on my mailing list then please do feel free to add your name and address to that.

Pots in Place

Well, strictly speaking tiles in place. You may remember pictures of these tiles in the various stages of preparation, decoration and finish, and the picture of Dave and Sue looking at them in the farm yard at Spring Fling. Well here they are in situ in their kitchen, what do you think? I made tiles years ago while I was still working at Jason's for my mum and dad's fireplace, these are the first I've done since then. I am very pleased with them and miraculously they seem to even fit the space that they were supposed to fit into.
Thanks for the pictures you two, I hope the tiles keep you happy for many years.

In the mean time however I am getting very frustrated. There is so so much to do and I had so many plans for the summer. Potfest in the Park is coming up and I had hoped to have some new things made for that as it is the first time I've done it and I really wanted to have something new and great there. I do have lots of pots but it's the same nark with me, I've seen them before and I want some new ones, there's nothing wrong with the ones I have, and most people visiting the show won't have seen them before but it's just me being awkward and eternally unsatisfied with my pots. I especially wanted to have finished my kiln by now and wanted to be well underway with the pots for the first firing, it is very hard not being able to work. I do have lots of annoying things to do, you know the accounts, sorting the mailing list, making sure new exhibition and events are listed on the website but you know how it is they're not what I want to do so I shall ignore them for as long as possible. I've also got the next article for the Craft&Design magazine to write but I don't want it to end up being a moaning piece if I'm still frustrated though there is a lot to tell that's happened over the last couple of moths without spending 1000 words on my neck. I can't spend that long at the computer either as it still hurts to sit with my arms out in front of me for too long. My neck exercises are coming along a treat though, my arms feel like they do belong to my body again and are not separate entities dangling by a hugely sensitive spiders web feeling every jolt and movement as nasty pain, and I can, slowly, turn my head again and Paul is pleased that I can now wash the dishes again. Hopefully it won't be too long now, I'm trying to be gentle but to still do stuff, normal stuff, not hoiking bags of clay obviously, so that I can get the muscles used to what they should be able to do again. "Whiplash occurs when the soft tissue in the spine is stretched and strained after the body is thrown in a sudden, forceful jerk." Makes me feel a bit sick just thinking about what actually happens to your body in a crash, eek, even in what is essentially a relatively minor one like this. Well maybe those accounts will get attacked this afternoon...

Germany continued...

Here we are again, some more pictures from the Hohr-Grenzhausen trip. You can tell that I am capable of doing virtually nothing here at the moment by the fact that all these posts are from the trip. It does mean however that you are probably going to get the whole trip, you poor poor people, when usually I end up missing things to tell you because I've gotten carried away by something new and exciting that's happening right now.

So today's pictures are all stands from our little group, well all except the first picture of the raku fired coffee and the last picture which was the entry for the "spot the British potter in Hohr-Grenzhausen visiting friends" competition.

So the stall above belongs to Andrew and Michael aka the Northumbrian Craft Pottery, they've been working together for 23 years now making good, honest pots.

Here's Pollie on her and Garry's stand, most of the work they had with them was wall pieces, they are having a new website put together at the moment so call back and see their link in a few weeks to see it.

Here's David Constantine White with his vibrant majolica, he's a font of knowledge on the traditional pots of the Yorkshire area, and even though he's from the wrong side of the hills I do like the chap.

Here we have Chris Cox's stand, she is doing some soda fired pots now and if you get the chance to visit Earth and Fire next weekend you can she her exhibiting there.

Oops that's me and my stand.

This is just a part of Clare Wakefield's stand, the white against the black is very eye catching. Clare will be at Potfest in the Park with me at the end of July. I didn't get any closer pictures I'm afraid, you'll have to visit her website and have a look to see them properly, another one with a new site up coming any moment now.

Geoff Cox, again a rubbish picture, I'm sorry about that, Geoff along with his wife Chris organise the hugely successful Potfest shows each year. I do like the thought on the home page of Geoff's website, something to think about.

Name that potter in one, the picture is a bit dark, sorry, I was sheltering from the intense sun outside, he's carrying a bag of tasty freshly baked bread and appears to have shed his characteristic bow tie in the heat. Lovely chap and full to bursting with wonderful stories and anecdotes.

Now I realise as I get to the end here that I don't have a picture of Tim Huckstepp and his stand, sorry Tim, if anyone sends me one I shall put it up for you.

Around the Town

Here's a brief trip around Hohr-Grenzhausen for you all. It's a very pretty little place as you can see.

Gas kilns a plenty in this old factory, whoppers.

The barmaid in this pub, well there's a story, I think she may have gotten a little fed up with us, she was what you might describe as a feisty lady to put it mildly.

There are pots or pottery pictures all over everywhere.

And then the storm approached, oh boy was it a good one. I do enjoy a good storm though the wind for the first few minutes was too strong to be welcomed at a potters market, the sound of breaking pots is never a pleasant one. It had been a hot hot weekend and no breeze at all and this came as a welcome relief.

Last night Paul came back, a day early so that was a very nice surprise. Now I'm just probably going to annoy him by wittering on and generally being a nuisance while he tries to work though judging by the good weather here he'll probably finish early and be off on the bike for an hour in the not too distant future. I'll try to be good and not myther him too much, honest I will.

Bartmannkrug Frenzy

Around every corner was a Bellarmine jar or six, the slightly wonky, sagged in the kiln ones were my favourites. I was trying to draw some, I did do a bit but I find it awkward trying to draw when I know that there are other folks around maybe waiting for me and I know that to anyone else my drawings are rubbish (in fact to me they are rubbish but hopefully they at least make sense to me) and I don't like other folk to see the mess I am making.

How can you not love that shape? They are all so very different too, all have very individual characters, I could give them personalities and habits quite easily, maybe that's what I'll spend the next few weeks doing...

I'm not sure I'm supposed to show these pictures really, hope it's ok.

Look at all these, this display sent me into fits of excitement and left the Geordies who were with me at the time wondering how on earth Paul copes living with me all the time. This whole room was full of gem after gem. I think I first saw Bellarmine jars in the Manchester City Art Gallery back when I was at uni there. Blimey that's a scary thought it's ten years this month since I graduated from there, Alex can you really believe that? Crikey where does the time go and to think I had no idea I would now be living in Scotland and making slip ware pots, how very strange. Hmmm I shall contemplate that for the rest of the day probably.

Dan I hope you like these pics, I briefly met the gentleman you talked about who had spoken at the conference you were at the other month. It would have been good to speak to him properly but maybe another time.

Some of these pots are at Hohr-Grenzhausen and some are at Frechen.

This fountain is in Frechen, it was fab, for a potter anyway, maybe others would not be quite so fond of it but someone somewhere has a picture of me and the bearded men, you could get lots closer when they'd turned the water off at night.

They all had different images on their bellies.

I was rather fond of this wonky trio too, they felt closer to the British pots that I tend to look at regularly.

This fat full belly though is just scrummy, they'd be great to cuddle.

Car update, the little old Polo of mine has been written off, not a surprise given it's age and the now un-straight lines that it has but sad all the same, it's been a good wee friend and I shall miss it. Ridiculous I know to get attached to a lump of metal but there you go, I'm just waiting to see how many peanuts they offer me for it from the insurance. The pain is easing up a lot you will be glad to hear, my neck is moving more each day but still things like brushing my hair are sore and anything that involves moving my arms upwards or trying to lift anything. I think the better I start to feel the more frustrated I'm going to feel too and then I'll have to be very careful not to push it. My lovely friend Phil is popping over this afternoon with his little boys and they are going to take me to theirs for tea and then drop me back here, that'll be a nice change. I think the cows outside are getting tired of my stories now so I can go and inflict them on the McMenemy family instead.