Hannah McAndrew - slipware potter

i.scout.do.you?

2012-01-30T12:10:00.000-08:00

I Scout. Do you? Have you ever? Would you again? Why do I? Why don't you?

I do for lots of reasons. To begin with, years back when I joined as a Venture Scout it was because I wanted to climb, I wanted to camp, I wanted to canoe, I wanted some excitement and if I'm honest (mum don't read this bit please) it seemed like it would be an acceptable face of excitement to my parents if that makes sense. I certainly didn't expect that it would hook me like it did and that 18 years later I'd still be involved.

After being in the Ventures I became a Cub Scout Leader, back in Bolton, then continued when I moved up here. For a while I helped with the Explorer Scouts (14 - 18 years olds). I found a group when I moved up here because I knew it would help me meet people here which was going to be hard living where I did and working with only one other person. This picture above though it looks like it's about 100 years old was taken maybe 6 years back at the top of Great Gable in the Lake District on Remembrance Sunday with my Explorer Scouts. There is a service up there every year, it's amazing, there's hundreds of people climb the mountain for the service.

Blair Atholl Jamborette, Perthshire, Scotland, every other year. Amazing! I've been two or three times, and have been the arts and crafts coordinator for the camp. There's over 1000 Scouts there, half Scottish and half international Scouts. It's much smaller than the world jamboree's are, designed as such so that when you meet a new friend you'll be able to find them again. I've had such incredible times on this camp and that was me going as an adult leader and working dam hard while there but also having such fun and good times. It's a huge family and the teams are strong and the Scouts are having a ball. You remember when you are young and you have those times that are so intense and amazing and exciting and fun and unforgettable and new and everything all rolled into one and you feel like you might burst and that you'll never be the same again because this is the moment when your life changes? This is a camp where that kind of feeling is happening all the time.

Fun, jokes, jolly japes, even the leaders have all that, we don't just leave it for the young people.

Strangers from countries all over the world thrown together for 10 days in a field with some fires and tents and amazing things happen, friendships are made and lives are changed for ever. So why is it so much harder out in the rest of the world? Do you know there are over 28million Scouts across the world?

The leaders make lots of new friends too. Friendship is a common theme for Scouting.

I haven't been on a big camp in a while, my life changed and Blair Atholl is at the time of year when all the big shows are, so sadly it had to give for me.

I still have my Cub Scouts though. They keep me on my toes / insane / busy / laughing.

Sunday was the Galloway Leaders Gathering, our annual meeting to plan the year's activities for all the sections in Scouting. We work with young people from 6 in the Beavers up to the Network who are 24 at the most. The Explorer Scouts gave a presentation on a trip they'd had to Kenya in the summer where they helped refurbish a school. Their photos and their talk just took me right back to that feeling I described earlier, the bursting with excitement and wonder. I haven't ever done a trip abroad with Scouts but you can get that feeling even on home territory I think. On annual camp just down the road at Kirkdale Port it happens, on a smaller scale it happens in meeting halls up and down the country, across the world, every night of the week, somewhere, sometime, some one, lots of people are Scouting.

We had our Burns' Supper last week at Cubs, they are a hysterical bunch. I love them to bits and they do of course drive me to distraction. I work with them because in some small way I want to try to make a difference. They remember though, things we do with them stick in their heads and years later they remember. Scouting is about forming memories as someone said yesterday, a lovely way to think about it. I was presented with my 15 year service award yesterday, how that has come about I will never know. I can't have been doing it that long surely?

So yes, I Scout.

www.scouts.org.uk

Jugs Jugs Jugs

2012-01-24T13:43:00.001-08:00

I had a count up the other day. I have 47 jugs to decorate. Blimey, how did that happen?

Better get those trailers flying.

I'm liking these new jugs shapes. They're very different to fit patterns onto but I've run out of them now. I think I need to make something other than jugs next though.

I live in a lovely place.

2012-01-23T12:29:00.000-08:00

Slip slop time. Don't look at the dodgy looking 1 that looks like a 2 on the left hand jug though. Oops.

I've been out and about today driving around the area. It was a stunningly beautiful day. I drove through a snow storm up on the moors and the hills are thick with it. Blue skies and crispy air though.

I haven't given you any of my fabulous landscape for a while. This is all north of me here, it gets much more rugged very quickly up that way.

I used to drive over these moors everyday from my mum and dad's house to where I did my apprenticeship. There were a few hairy icy journeys and a few in the dark where you happen upon those big black woolly cows in the first picture and they are nigh on invisibly until you are right upon them. They roam about over the moor and road.

Tumble down stone dykes and lichen covered trees.

Tuesday Tuesday

2012-01-17T13:32:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of the chaos that was my work bench this morning, some people think that my workshop is always spotlessly tidy and neat and clean. This is just a segment of the madness that was in there this morning.
This afternoon though I did some sorting that I have been meaning to do for a year since I moved into this workshop, I bought a new top for these trestles that are my table as this one is bowed beyond belief (you put a full cup of tea in a certain spot and you can nigh on have it over flowing with the tilt on it). I bought some flat!!! ware boards, I know, a crazy extravagance, not enough to replace them all but I can burn the worst now, good kiln fodder. I could do with sitting having a good hard think about what to do in this space, some of it works ok but I am severely lacking in shelf space for in progress work. The ideal spot is a pain of a spot as it's a solid granite boulder wall and you need nothing short of a thermic lance to get holes in it.

Funny wee men it looks like I've been making today, they remind me of Matey Bubblebath for those of you that remember such things. I feel like everything needs to be new and amazing at the moment and when I make them they aren't new (they're all intensely medieval inspired at the moment, even more so than usual) and because they're all shapes I haven't ever made before they're not anything even approaching the same plane as amazing. Last year was incredible in many many ways, I mean it's not every day you get invited to come and show what you do in America is it? I did shows I've been applying for for years, I sold lots and lots of pots, had a show at Gracefield with Phil that I was really pleased with and in the main had a wonderful time, oh and went back to America again. So suddenly I am in a new year and well, you can't beat that can you? I feel under a lot of pressure to prove that it was right that I did all those things, to prove that I am good enough to have done them and to make pots that are better and more accomplished and more mine than last year. It's probably only me that's put the pressure there but I think that's what it is that's making me worry about every pot that I am trying to make now. The head I had the first week in January with the crazy sprigged mugs was much more fun, I'd like that one back if I may.

Monday Monday

2012-01-16T10:57:00.000-08:00

"How do I love thee (oh book of Medieval Pottery in the Yorkshire Museum)?
Let me count the ways."

Once again that slim little paper backed volume makes me long to be able to make pots even an ounce as beautifully formed as they are. I've so much to do at the moment, I spent a lot of last week in a bit of a tizzy flitting about and quite unable to settle properly to any one thing. This week that absolutely has to change.

This is one of the commissions that I am working on at the moment, a harvest jug with Ceres on the front and images of farming around the back. It's taking a lot of working out and working on. Good to do some sgraffito again though, it's one of three large sgraffito jugs that I have on order just now.
Running out of shelf space because the things I've made are either tall and fat and take up lots of height or flat but wide like the dishes in the last post and take up lots of depth. I need some more shelves, just to decide what sort and where to put them...

Slip Trailers at Dawn

2012-01-13T12:40:00.000-08:00

I've a few of my big chargers ordered at the moment, it's a bit daunting when the biggies are ordered, a bit more pressure to get them through safely. These two are (hopefully) heading down to a National Trust property, Ham House. They are about 17" diameter now.

It's been a very disjointed week for one reason and another. After my initial spurt into the new year I've been struggling to keep the momentum going. Deadlines are approaching however, deadlines that two weeks ago were ages and forever away are not zooming up quick quick.

I've been putting off slipping these crazy mugs, wasn't sure quite how I could attack them with my trailers once they had all the sprigs on them, and though it has been very very hard I have in fact just slipped some and not trailed them at all. Some just have very minimal trailing, it's so hard to just do a couple of lines.

Found out this week that I got a stand at Art in Clay at Hatfield House this year. It's changed dates this year due to some big sporting event I think, and is going to be the weekend of the 6th, 7th, 8th July. Book it in your diaries now please.

Peace and Wriggly Wobbly bottoms.

2012-01-11T14:26:00.000-08:00

Firstly a commissioned bowl.

Secondly some wriggly wobbly bottoms.

Drawing Dilemas

2012-01-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

"I don't do drawing". I've said it many many times. 2012 though has one of my resolutions to be "do more drawing".

I'm trying...

Some work better than others by a mile.

They are all to do with pots that I fancy making really.

In this last one, if I were better at it there might be pots some of you would recognise.

Hannah McAndrew "UUM"

2012-01-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

(this mug looks gigantic but though it is big isn't as bucket sized as it looks in this picture)

So it's the end of the first week back at work, it's flown around, before I know it it'll be June and then December and I'll be saying where on earth has the year gone.
I three big fat mugs the other day after spending a couple of cups of tea time sitting in front of the fire looking through some books and my sketch pads to find a mug shape that I haven't made before.
I ended up making some big fat round bellied things, they are pretty big, 1lb of clay, they'll hold quite an amount of tea. Then I went and made some more tea and sat looking at them and realised they were the same sort of shape as the Doug sprigged mug that I was drinking out of - oops. I told him this when I spoke to him but said you know it'll be fine because I never use sprigs.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Until now that is...
I have a box full of sprigs that I've made over the last many years and they sit there and do nothing. As this is my "January make whatever weird things you so have the desire to" time I thought I'd have a play with them after all.

So they are in some ways inspired by two potters with the initials DF and in some ways by this excellent piece in an Australian gallery. As the last one will make quite clear.

A jolly dear friend of mine was describing me this week and used what I think frankly is a wonderful ending to his description of "ultimately utterly mad". I love it, I think I might use it after my name and be from now onwards Hannah McAndrew UUM.

First Slip Encounters of 2012

2012-01-04T13:44:00.000-08:00

For those of you outwith the tiny islands that make up the British Isles you may not know that we appear to have been living through constant gale force crazy winds for the last couple of days. It's pretty crazy, I mean where I am it's never what you would call still but this is wild. Definite "wind in your ears" weather, and in everything else for that matter.
I have been back in work for two whole days now and hadn't realised before I stopped for Christmas just how shattered I was. I've been sleeping 12 and 14 hour nights and we've been walking and visiting my family and then on our wee trip to a shed in Northumberland and not much more. It's been great, I came back to work feeling substantially refreshed and with a fresher head than I've had for the last month or so, I was getting a bit lost and confused and befuddled so hopefully armed with my new plan I am ready for 2012 and all it's surprises and challenges.

We spent three days over new year in a "wigwam" in Northumberland on Herding Hill Farm. Owned by a lovely man, Steve and his family it's a fairly new enterprise for them and the wigwams with their own hot tubs haven't arrived yet so we were in the basic ones but heck it was good. Wooden structures, benches and a wee table and then the benches form the beds (Paul was having a disco kip one day on the bench there) and they are cosy and warm and pleasantly different. We do camp generally for our holidays but over January and in the wind and rain that we have been having that would have been very hard work. These wigwams are cropping up all over the UK, I would recommend them.

So I have buckets full of slip at work that I sieved before the holidays and it was crying out to be used so today I plunged in and got some pots decorated. That's good to be back at I can tell you. I have a large bucket of thin black and a bucket of trailing black still to sieve if there are any volunteers for that job just come around.

These dishes are about 12 or 14" diameter I think, they look considerably smaller than when I threw them, I think the walls have straightened themselves up quite a bit. (That reminds me that's one of my new year's resolutions actually, posture posture watch my posture.)

The guardian sheep of Haltwhistle Burn.

There's an old tile / brick / pipe works that we walked past one day, someone who shall remain nameless though you'll probably guess that it wasn't Paul was picking up shards of pots all along the footpath for a while and then we came across this. Even with much polite enquiry and cajoling and then almost begging the guys here could not be persuaded to part with any of their few dozen tons of fire bricks that were stacked around the yard quite obviously doing nothing of any use what so ever. "Oh no dear they're not what you'd be needing". Humph!

White slip background, black and Hollyford trailed.

We were staying right on the edge of the National Park and very close, maybe a half mile or so to Hadrian's Wall. Of course we walked a chunk of it one day. This great geological structure is a part of the Whin Sill, it's a dolerite from the Carboniferous period that covers vast stretches of north-eastern England.

And here's a bit of the wall for you. This is one of the best preserved parts of Hadrian's Wall. Unfortunately I didn't see any fine Roman shards around, not even sticking out of the myriad of molehills that were around. Plenty of clay though trying to suck my boots off my feet.

It's going to be a funny old year I think. I have no idea what to expect, it sounds if you listen to the news it's going to be hard hard hard for those of us who make things that are not absolutely essential to most people's lives. I like to think though that the doom and gloom merchants are just that as they do struggle so hard to report good things. I didn't get into Earth and Fire at Rufford this year, really hoped I might just manage it. After having done it last year and getting on OK I was really hoping to try to get some sort of continuity, ho hum, never mind, maybe 2013. And I get really frustrated because I have so little opportunity to see some of my potting friends and that's another that I won't see them at. I did get a place at Potfest in the Park again which is great and I am looking forward to that already. Nice weather please be here by then. The list for Potfest in the Park is up on the website now if you want to whet your appetite for the end of July's potting festival.

In the mean time I have some big plates to make for a National Trust property, some pots for a trip across the seas to the Tokyo Art Fair and also at Gallery St Ives there in Tokyo. I shall not sadly be accompanying them though mores the pity. Possibly some big plates and big fat jugs for a project in Dumfries just waiting for confirmation on that. A shop to stock in February and Spring Fling of course which this year is the first weekend in June rather than the last weekend in May.

Book your trip for that now, it's the ten year anniversary Fling.

Phew! I've maybe missed something but that is quite plenty to be going on with for the now I think, even a bit daunting as I sit and type it out. well it is getting late now and I think I should be in my bed listening to the wind making some un-discoverable thing whistle like a telephone outside the bedroom window.

Welcome to 2012 everyone and lets all have a good un. I'll see you again soon.

E.O.Y.O.F.F

2011-12-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

Well here we are almost at the end of another year and what a year it has been. I'm giving you here a whole string of photos of people as this year just seems to have been the year for making new friends and for reminding myself how lucky I am that the friends that I have are as good as they are.

Not everyone is featured in photos, try as I might I couldn't find pictures of you all but know that that does not mean that you are forgotten (namely Amanda and Christine-why have I no pictures of you two in my stash?) Alex and Doug, wonderful, funny good gang to be with. It's been a little odd getting to know Alex in a different capacity but it's been great, it's only occasionally I feel I fall back into student mode (I think).

A lot of the pictures are from America, how could they not be? What a time. You've heard most of the tales by now I'm sure and you are bored half to death of hearing me witter about my trips over the sea this year I am also sure. Heck they were both big experiences. There's no way again I could show all the people that made an impression over there, blogger would probably crash if I tried! The Falmouth High School picture with Doug feels like it was taken another lifetime ago, only 8 months, hard to believe.

There is though the whole Cape Cod gang.

Hollis and Dee, you wonderful people. Thank you!

Guy Wolfe, what a treat to get to come on that detour to visit you.

The Virginia Crew. What can I say? You were fab.

Dan, you are as I am sure you have been told on many many occasions - 'the man'!

Ahhh wee Ellie.

A very sad and very happy picture taken at Kevin Crowe's house. Doug, Dan, me, Ang, Ron. What a bunch!

And the Ang, Ron, Doug, Karma society.

The North Carolina Contingent. What a way to finish it all off. There's so many pictures I could have shown you of us all out there, most in in older blog posts or show me looking so ridiculous that I feel I can't force them upon the world.

Closer to home my wonderful friends and landlords that patiently let me build this heap of bricks in their back garden, Alan and Hazel on the left and my fellow crafts person and blacksmith friend Adam (see that lovely loop welded on the top of my firebox door, he did that, amongst other bits and bats that he knocks up).

Visitors to sit by my fire and drink tea were many, Dave and Sue were there and are always welcome. Maybe I should make an album of my friends drinking tea in my workshop, that would be a good subject.

Phil! What can I say?

Potters, ever present are potters, this bunch are in the Lake District at Potfest or rather on an evening of relaxing after a day at Potfest.

Deb and her mum. Deb lives in the Caribbean so I see her but rarely, it's a treat when I do though. In this category there's a number of friends who live not as far as that but who I see irregularly but that I know are always there for a chat on the phone, you know who you are Emma et al.

New friend! Biscuit. Currently batting the ornaments on the Christmas tree while looking innocently at me when I turn around to tell her off.

Trip Stateside number two. Dan again, and helper Jason, out to help a lady in need. What gents.

My Craft Scotland Phili Team, I can't find our group picture. Sorry.

Ron and Sarah, Paul and I had a fab time with you two in the Big Apple. That was a treat. We'll see you here next will we?
Lastly but by no means least, the constant throughout, puts up with my to-ing and fro-ing.Paul. We're going to have a couple of days away in a shed over the new year. I'm not a fan of the whole hoo hah that is made of the end of one calendar year and the start of the next so we thought we'd get away from it all and go and stay in a shed in Northumberland. You know because we live in such a hectic built up crazy place of course.

To all of you who have been with me through this year and supported me in the great and the good and the jolly and the sometimes not so jolly times whether you be locally, nationally, internationally and virtually, thank you and a very joyous and peaceful 2012 when it arrives. x

January Madness Comes Early

2011-12-23T12:23:00.000-08:00

I have been feeling rather less than festive for the last week or two, struggling to get my head around the idea of it being Christmas already and the end of the year and somehow feeling like I have achieved nothing this year because it's gone so fast. (I know I know, when I get the chance to sit down and think it all through I'll realise that it is precisely because I have been doing so much that the year has gone so quickly.) Anyway I decided to push the boat out and make the workshop all festive and full of fun and joyousness and to deck the halls with boughs of holly, or string a bit of tinsel around a bit of metal, in case you are struggling to find the relevant photo, please see the slab roller image above.

So much for wanting to get all the pots that I had already thrown slipped and sat drying out over Christmas and then taking it easy this week. Well I did get everything that was already thrown decorated but then I went and threw a load more. That was after Mr Fitch gave me a good talking to. Sometimes I need it, my head runs away with itself a lot, many times in a good way but often not in a good way at all. So I have been making again and you know what, I hate to admit it but he can be right sometimes. Any road up I made some big wide dishes and some downright fat jugs so I'll need to pop in tomorrow and cover them up and so they can sit and await my return in the new year.

I've been starting to teach a lady who has made pots in the past but who wants a bit of tutoring I suppose and we have this fantastic agreement where she pays me in cheese as she works for Loch Arthur Community, an incredible place if you get the chance to visit and fantastic cheese makers, indeed they just won the Best Food Producer in the BBC Good Food Awards. For those of you that know Paul you will appreciate how well this form of payment goes down in our house!

dragon puzzle jugs! Usually it's January in the dark dismal month of yuck that I find the insanity takes over and the madness is allowed to have free reign over what I make. There is the madness that is allowed to be kept and fired and many times there is that which has to begin life again after the reincarnation that comes from the reclaim bucket. This winter it's happening early. One of these is a commission but even so, they are heading down the route of insanity and craziness. I am though a girl who does love a bit of insanity and craziness though so that makes it all ok.

Paul came over this afternoon as I was finishing these wee beasties, he sat drinking tea and laughing openly as he watched me. There I was thinking I was creating serious art and there he was laughing away spilling tea and eating ginger cake. Charming charming.

I made sure that thee dragons had their fair share of cake too. I think they liked it.

So I think this'll be the last post before Christmas, "thank heavens" I hear you cry. Maybe I'll slip another one in before the end of the year though so gird your loins for that one.

See this beggar's eyes? They're the spouts for the puzzle jug, you have to suck his eyes, or the end of his tail, depending, weird thought.

Do all, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas", may it be a "most wonderful time of the year" with marshmallows for toasting"(?) and "caroling out in the snow" and may there be "much mistletoeing" (I just realised this week that I have never been sought out with any mistletoe - come on Paul get your act together boy!) and I hope your "hearts will be glowing when loved ones are near". Take care, enjoy yourselves and your families and friends. x

How many dots are too many dots?

2011-12-19T12:07:00.000-08:00

I have been still making and decorating and trying to dry pots and firing and trying to get orders dried and ready for Christmas and trying to not sit by the fire drinking tea for too long each day (which is very hard work). The plate above is about 16" diameter and has lots of dots, you can see them better in the close up picture further down. It's one of those things that I start and then wonder whether it was a good idea but by then of course it's too late and carry on I must.

This one has been made slightly oval, assuming it comes out in one piece it is a commission, fingers crossed.

We've had lots of weather recently. Just about everything you can think of. Last week I didn't ride in to work once, I'll ride through lots of weather as it's such a short distance but we had gales that even in the van knocked me across the road, we had sheet ice the whole way and we had snow snow thick blizzardy snow.

Of course the snow day I walked in and might have decorated some / most of the road. I got caught this time though, I think it's the first time I've ever been caught doing it by a stranger, oops, funny though. On my way home I noticed that someone (Hazel was that you?) had been joining in, I like that, collaborative road decorating.

I've a couple more big platters to slip this week, and some puzzle jugs to put together and some parcels to pack and get away, maybe some slips to sieve and then I think that'll be about me for the year after all that. Phew!

New York Insanity and Shelter Island Calm

2011-12-14T12:35:00.000-08:00

After the week in Philadelphia with the Craft Scotland gang I left there on the monday morning with a small group of intrepid Scots on the Greyhound (well it was actually Peter Pan but booked through Greyhound because what else would we use?) and travelled up to New York City. "New York City imagine that", on the journey we "counted the cars on the New Jersey turnpike" and suddenly we were spewed off the bus into the insanity of this mad place. I left my travelling companions and hopped in a taxi - eeeee-zooom-dodge-brake hard-honk-honk-honk-Hannah swearing silently to herself and praying for the journey to not be too long in the back of the dodgem car to meet none other than Mr and Mrs Funky Philbeck (you can blame DF of course Ron).

We had arranged to meet up in the Big Apple that day and to spend a few days there together and the extra special bit was that Paul was flying over that day too to meet us. Here are Ron and Sarah posing on the street.

Familiar looking place don't you think? We didn't go up it, not enough time, too much to see.

Tis a bit like the Gherkin in London though, seems to be at the end of every street but other wise there is so much to see all the time and you know when you are just walking along "in a New York minute, everything can change".

I always feel for potter's partners, and haven't before realised just what Paul has to deal with until Sarah pointed out that I am "even worse than Ron". Don't you find that pots just jump out all over the place to say hello to you? This was one of two big buggers in a window that Ron and I stopped to have our photo taken with - blimey that does sound sad now that I stop and write it down. I can't think where it was but it wasn't while we were "Walking down Madison".

An awful lot of this part of the trip was about food. We ate rather a lot and rather regularly, it was all good though, if just too much of it.

Especially for my friend Janet on Cape Cod! We saw hundreds of the awful things, you'd have been very happy!

We spent a lot of time just "Walking in NY" and looking and being stunned and amazed and flapping a bit at the sheer amount of cars and people and stuff going on. We had a few quiet moments too thank goodness.

We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to take in the view and to have a wee wonder over the other side of the river.

Paul and me spent a day in the Metropolitan Museum, I have lots of pictures from there, they might get a post all of their very own. Humungous place, very like the V&A in feel and in eclectic mix of all sorts from all over the worls. I was particularly drawn to the case of redwares where Paul left me for a while as he went off to look at another gallery.

Taxis! Flipping heck they are another breed those drivers! I guess you would have to be to survive but crikey! I can live without ever having to do any of that again in my life!

All too soon that bit of the trip was over though and we were saying goodbye to Ron and Sarah again, too sad, I know I've spent time with them twice this year but as with Dan a few days before it wasn't enough. Here's the four of us in the apartment that we stayed in, just before Paul and I headed off to catch another bus for the last bit of our trip when before we knew it we were "Leaving New York". As my friend Phil said when I told him we were just living songs the whole time - thank goodness it wasn't "Christmas Eve in the drunk tank".

And so to a place that feels so far removed from the chaos that is NYC and to few days on Shelter Island, just about 100 miles along the coast. We were heading there to meet up with the lassie on the bike there who you may or may not be able to tell from the picture is Paul's sister. Maz lives on Shelter Island and I've only met her once before rather briefly but Paul has been and stayed with her in the past. We had a bit of calm time. We rode bikes around the island (hecky thump that was kind of hard). For some reason I knew that I had to ride on the opposite side of the road but in knowing that my brain seemed to think that left and right would be the opposite way around too. Eek!

In so many ways it reminded me of being on Cape Cod back in April. The days were bright and sunny but there was a definite chill in the air, especially at night. The landscape is not dissimilar, after all they aren't really that far apart. I waved to Hollis one day but I think he was busy drinking coffee in the coffee shop at the time and missed me.

Fab fences. It's a quiet place at this time of year but I don't think it would be my cup of tea in the summer months, too busy and too hot probably. It was great to spend a bit of time with Maz, her and Paul are so alike it was quite frightening at times. Again too short a time though and before we knew it we were at the airport and awaiting a plane back to Blighty.

Who'd have believed that little Miss likes to stay in her workshop and make pots by herself would be so well travelled this year. I certainly wouldn't. It was fab to see some my lovely lovely friends again and maybe the next time we meet will be over this side of the pond. Who knows...

La,la,la,la,la,lamerica

2011-12-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

During a brief couple of free hours that we got when we were in Philadelphia (which now seems like months ago), myself and Myer ran off to find the Philadelphia Clay Studio. It's a huge building in the city which has lots of workshop spaces which we didn't see but we did spend a long time in the gallery space there. There is a good airy space with lots of pots on shelves and table tops. Just to add a bit more excitement to it though, the cupboards that line the walls are all full of pots too and visitors are invited to open them and look through the work that is in there.

These pots are by Cathi Jefferson who I met years ago in Wales I think it was.

Kyle Carpenter's work, I've seen lots of pictures through the blog before now but never picked any of his pots up, the mug on the right ended up coming home with me. I'd have very much liked to have brought he plate home but this was before the show had even started and I didn't feel I could make such a purchase prior to having sold any pots of my own at all.

These pots took me by surprise, they are by someone with the wonderful name of Sunshine Cobb. They look like they are drawn and 2D in a strange way. Interesting stuff. I'm not really a big fan of matt glazes but I like take to these.

Matt Hyleck, I loved this bowl shape, wood fired stoneware it is. This could happily have come home with me too but as I say I was trying to be careful.

Doesn't that collapsing pumpkin look grumpy.

Then there were lots of potters at the PMA Craft Show, some of whom I took photos of and some I just drooled over (just to clarify that is the pots I drooled over not the poor potters themselves). This jar is by Julie Crosby. Some of her shapes though beautiful were a little cold but I liked this jar a lot. I visited it a few times over the course of the show though it left without me.

I loved these three jars by Bob Briscoe who is based in Minnesota, I think they look fab together. Bob is a top fella, really enjoyed talking to him, he's full of enthusiasm and energy it seems. Maybe I'll head out his way next time I pop over to the States. Who knows.

Opposite Bob was Matthew Metz who I had been told about by Mr. Philbeck. I'd not seen his pots before and really enjoyed both of his two styles.

The sprigged pieces were very gentle. The sgraffito designs are much more bold and strong.

As I say there were lots of potters whose work I didn't manage to get photos of, in particular Sean Ireland whose workshop Doug and me visited in April with Ron and Ang. He wasn't at home at the time so it was great to meet him. (I did eventually decide that it was one of his pots that was going to come home with me from the show, it was such a relief once I'd made that decision.) I had a fantastic conversation with Sean's girlfriend. She told me she liked my shoes and I launched into a tale of how stressful I find the whole dressing to be 'not in the countryside and covered in clay' thing and how I'd had to buy new shoes to go there as I didn't have any suitable ones for the smart show. She laughed and told me that she had had exactly the same problem so I was relieved to find a kindred spirit in the not being all too comfortable in frocks and smart shoes department (says she who just bought a dress today with a token that my sister gave me for my birthday).
Next America blog will be of the New York section with Mr and Mrs Funky Philbeck, stay tuned for that one...

Winding Up / Winding Down?

2011-12-02T12:30:00.000-08:00

Ahhh, new pictures for me and for you. Exciting to have some new proper photographs of some of my pots. It seems like ages since I had any. Too late for a few of my applications but hey they're ready for the next ones at least. These are done by Doug's good friend Jonathan Thompson. Thanks, I like them a lot.

This week has been rather disjointed and I do feel like I am starting to wind down for Christmas already though I realise that Christmas is yet three weeks or so away so I can't start that yet. Actually I haven't yet managed to wind myself back up into workshop mode since I got back from my trip. I've a few orders yet to finish before Christmas but for the first time in about 12months no pressing next deadline. I think I am just going to gently potter and see how the fancy takes me. I made a few big chargers this week, just to see if I can't get back to getting some through the kiln in one piece for a change.

This sunday December 4th is the almighty Corsock Craft Fair, quite possibly one of the best craft fairs you will ever attend. It's an entry fee of £1 which gives you a wonderful supply of tea and cake while you browse some amazing quality craft work from around our region. I'll be having a wee bit of a sale there so there may well be some bargains to be had if you so desire. It's in the lovely Corsock Village Hall

CORSOCK CRAFT FAIR - Where Christmas begins! THIS Sunday 4th Dec. 11am- 3pm

Corsock Village Hall (newly insulated and decorated!)

A quality Craft Fair with stunning, quality hand made local crafts, mistletoe, jewellery, ceramics, Christmas cakes (inc Gluten free), embroidery, glass, cards, artisan bread, chutneys, circus toys, decorations,etc. etc.

Teas, coffee and delicious cakes free and Pringles Bar next door for drinks or lunch.

£1 entry all proceeds to Corsock events and Afghan Schools

Also your only chance to secure tickets for the Corsock Christmas Ceilidh

So that's all for now my dears, if I don't see you at Corsock I'll see you here shortly with some more tales and pictures from that vast country over the water where I was at the other week.

USA The Return Volume I

2011-11-27T12:06:00.000-08:00

I'm home!
I've been back a week nearly now and I would have liked to have told you how it all went straight away but you know, I have been exhausted and have been just enjoying being back at home. This is the first time in a long long time that I have been at home knowing that I don't have to rush off somewhere soon. (Well I say that while typing in an otherwise empty flat in Glasgow which is a lovely flat and thank you very much Helen and Kate for letting me stay even though you both are away but I'll be home tomorrow for a while I hope.)
So I was away with the Craftscotland team to Philadelphia in the US to exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, which unless you have not been paying any attention what so ever you should already know. It isn't held in the museum, it's in the most enormous conference centre I have ever seen in my life, it's about the size of Dumfries I think. From the outside though apart from this banner you wouldn't have a clue what incredible stunningly beautiful treasures were to be seen inside. There's huge windows all along the side of the hall we were in but you can't see in from the road as it's blocked by curtains and in the cavernous entrance halls there's just the ticket boxes and it'd be great to have cases out there with work in or some more banners or something to help tempt people in. It's probably not allowed with rules and regulations you know but it'd be great to see.

So we travelled out from Edinburgh on the monday morning, lost one member of the team at Heathrow as he was poorly and he had to catch us up later. It felt like an awfully long day as these days of travelling always seem to, arriving in Philadelphia on the monday evening at about 10pm. I was not a part of the intrepid party animal sub group that headed out to find our new 'local' and ended up with a lock in till heaven only knows what time in the morning, me I was tucked up in bed fast asleep trying to gather up some energy and calm headed-ness in order to get through the set up the next day.

At ten o'clock the next morning this is what we were met with, this and the team of volunteers from the Womens Committee who undertake to organise this huge and stunningly impressive craft event every year in order to promote quality craft and to raise funds for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We had run down of the whole programme for the coming week, when we needed to have what done by and then trips were organised to Ikea and the like for those who needed to get display equipment for their stands.
I was the luckiest, jammiest person there though as my very own knights in shining armour, my elves extraordinaire in Virginia had been planning and organising on my behalf. Never in my life have I been so envied I don't believe. Partly it was because I had help. Jason, blogger Dan Finnegan's apprentice had driven over with a truck full of plinths (yes Jason that's p-l-i-n-t-h-s) and hard walls and a hamper full of tea and tasty treats to keep a Hannah going through a show. The other reason that I was envied was that Jason as well as being a great help and a lovely chap just happened to be found a tad good looking by my female companions, bless him.

So my stand after the helping hand from the gentleman formerly known as Jason, now thanks to Grace known as "hot Jason," looked like this! Most of the million of so pictures that I took are a wee bit blurry so that's a bit of a swine. I've never displayed on black before, the booths at the show were hung with black curtains, which isn't the norm here, usually at shows here you'd get a shell scheme wall or nothing at all depending on the venue. Anyway believe it or not I was pretty pleased with how it looked and with a lot of the pots, which if you've heard me moan about my stand in the past may come as a bit of a surprise. The bottles of water and home baked cakes and kettle and bread and tasty cheese that came in the hamper certainly helped sustain both myself and others of the gang during the show.

Just before the opening event which was on the wednesday evening I got the chance with ceramicist Myer Halliday from Edinburgh to have a quick wander about the town. We popped in for a quick visit the Philadelphia Clay Studio which is a huge place, lots of studio spaces upstairs which we didn't see but a big gallery space with loads of pots. Lots of work by potters whose pots I know from online and reading blogs and the like but have never seen in the flesh before. I've some pictures from that that I'll show you in another post.
While we were a wandering in the sunshine we came across this beautiful little street near the clay centre and I was rather taken with the pumpkins. I spent the next two week, pumpkin spotting, in Phili and New York and Shelter Island. The ones that have started to rot and collapse were fab too.

The private view is like nothing I have ever experienced before. It was busy busy busy, the wine and beer and cocktails flowed (nowhere near me as I had a head ache from hell and was having to concentrate to stay stood up and seeing straight). There was tasty and quite frankly bizarre food. There was one area serving the full Thanksgiving menu, another with a roasted vegetable ensemble and then the weirdest one with three different types of mashed potatoes which you put into a glass and then added your own toppings of chives and grated cheese etc to. Now I have never seen anything quite like that before. That was before the multiple bread pudding / ice cream / cream / chocolate sauce / nuts area.

The show was pretty good for me, I had lots of pots left over but my work went down pretty well. It was good that a lot of the people coming could see within what I do the link to a style of pottery that was made by the Pennsylvania-Dutch settlers to the region that they are now familiar with. I spoke to lots of people who have a fondness for that tradition and who were familiar with the huge collection that the PMA has.
I also had a bundle of visitors who I'd met with Doug back in April, firstly there was a surprise visit but oh what a lovely surprise from Betsy who has workshop space at Liberty Town in Fredericksburg.
On the saturday blogger Finnegan came up (I think it's up from his neck of the woods) to stay over and we dragged him along in a completley disorganised and almost ridiculously pathetic tour of the all the streets that were empty of and pubs or bars let alone one that could fit all 30 of us in at the one time. So much for one drink and then finding somewhere to go and have a nice meal and a good natter, we ended up with a beer or three and some live music and then a quick escape from the pub before the dancing and the filming of Doritos adverts started.

Dan helped me out on the sunday at my stand and we had a visit from Nancy Gallagher. Another flying visit from her, but Dan and Nancy managed not to bump into each other in the huge show though it was great to see you Nancy even though it was brief. My tile above MW's! Thanks!

On the scale of flappingness, as shows go, the run up and the thought of how stressful it could be was hugely flappy but in actual fact the reality of flappyness wasn't what I had predicted. I enjoyed the show though it was as these things always are very hard work. It's been months in the planning and sorting what with new glazes and shipping logistics. I felt somehow less pressure there than I would at home, maybe because I didn't really have any expectations, lots of hopes yes but nothing personally to compare it to and it's so far from home it sort of feels a bit unreal.
My two set up / take down elves were there at the end of the show to pack up the display kit and the pots that hadn't already found new homes. Dan had incredibly offered to take back to Liberty Town any work that hadn't sold already to sell from there on my behalf. What a man! He's just something else, I can't thank him enough for everything he has done for me. Honestly I do have some of the best friends that anyone could hope to have.
More tales and pictures at another point for you but for now I shall head off to my bed and leave you with these pics to enjoy.

America - The Return

2011-11-06T14:21:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am for the second time in one year, flapping in the manner that you would rightfully expect of me on the eve of a trip to America. Tomorrow I will be meeting up at the airport with twenty ish other Scottish crafts people and the girls from CraftScotland and flying to Philadelphia where we will be exhibiting at the PMA Craft Show. It is run by the Womens Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and their guest country this year is Scotland and we are the Scottish contingent.
I think I'm about ready, today has been crazy busy, I just had to go out this morning for a quick ride, it has been an utterly glorious day and though I probably didn't have time to be galavanting across the countryside it just had to be done. Anyway the bag is packed, my passport is in my bag, I have a good book for the plane (no comforting words from Mr Fitch this time, whatever shall I do?)
This picture is just to remind myself of my more comfortable surroundings before I head off into big big cities on the other side of a big big sea. (Thanks Christine.)

If you are in the Philadelphia area during the show, 10th to 13th November then come and visit us at the Pensylvania Convention Centre and say hello. If you're not in the area but know someone who might be and would be interested, please pass this on and let them know. The more the merrier.

In advance a huge thank you to Dan Finnegan and to Jason who are going to help me out in a massive way this trip, I am looking forward to seeing you both again, you have given me so much less to worry about already.
After the show I will be heading up to New York and my sweet Paul will be hopping on a plane to come and meet me there, we'll meet up with Ron Philbeck and his lovely wife Sarah too for a few days. Oh my it's going to be a busy busy time but another whole lot of firsts for me too. Deep breaths, calm thoughts, see you over there! I won't be able to blog but you can follow me@hannahmcandrew on twitter if you fancy, all being well I shall be able to update that. Tarah for now.

Home and Away

2011-11-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

I've been away down south for a few days with Alex and Doug, we had much pottery fun and much pottery talk and much pottery video watching. I for one really enjoyed not spending all day everyday frantically working my way through crazy long 'to do' lists and it was great to have some jolly pottery company for a while. I was glad to stop working on my own too.

I came home with the teeny wee jug in the picture above which Biscuit is showing the scale of for you. It's a stunning little DF pottery birthday present, thank you!

I'll not show you any pictures of the pots as that's not my place to show you (and most of the photos I took are blurry and rubbish), I had a few little fat jugs in which came out nicely, one came out slightly taller than it went in being as it is now firmly attached to the kiln prop on which it was stood. Oops.

There was a bit more of the gas burner soup heating activities too and we managed to eat outside one day as well, not as pretty a table set up as the time in March though.
We spent sunday afternoon in the Burton Art Gallery which is where we fired the bottle kiln in the park a few years back. The slipware collection there is - oh so good!! It was a great treat to see that.

On a completly different note, I don't much like this video but I really do love this song at the moment. I believe she is called Lana Del Ray. It's beautiful.
In the next couple of days I have to get my act together and get organised to fly to America. I leave for the PMA Craft Show on monday, not long now.

A Slippy Week's Work

2011-10-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

Phew, it's been an awfully long and tiring sort of week this week, everything has been kind of hard work, it's been cold and wet and windy and a bit quiet and lonely. I've had lots to do though so here is some of it for you to hopefully enjoy.

This big fattie is a present for the son of a dear friend of mine. Hopefully Emma is far too busy looking after Oliver and his big sister Emily to be reading this blog and so hopefully she'll not see this jug before I take it to her later this week (fingers crossed it comes out the kiln ok). Oliver was 9lb 2oz when he was born so this is a 9lb 2oz jug.

It's got his name and date of birth and birth weight and his mum and dad's names and his big sister too. Please please please let me have got all the correct information in the correct order.

I spent, hmmmm, quite a while decorating it with the sgraffito.

Here we have black slip, white slip, Hollyford slip.

Here we have dissected owl.

Here we have gremlin owl.

Here we have me making some slab dishes, now that was fun, I need to make some more, maybe that's what I'll do this week, I enjoyed them.

The one in the picture above unslipped became this one in the picture above slipped.

I made a half dozen slab dishes and a couple of thrown ones. All being well they are to sit with some of Amanda Simmons' glass in an exhibition in Penrith at The Red Barn Gallery coming up shortly.

I really like this shape, there'll be some more of these. These ones have wee knobby feet underneath them. This dish is about 10" long.
I'm popping down the road to Devon this week, it's nice as I am just at the end of a big batch of crazy making and so it'll be fun to go fire a kiln instead. Then in two weeks time I'm off to America again, now that has come round very very quickly. Yikes!

Ceramics a Fragile History - for those outwith the UK.

2011-10-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

Thank you BBC

USA Slipware Tour Volume V (I think)

2011-10-17T15:27:00.000-07:00

This afternoon as I stared out at the rain that was falling from the gray sky, the rain that was so close to being sleet I shut my eyes just for a couple of moments and accidental spent a good while day dreaming. Suddenly I was lying on a beach next to a lake on Cape Cod, the sky was blue and the sun was shining and was warm on my back. I was enjoying a few moments of calm quietness for collecting thoughts amid the intense and wonderful trip that was the American Tour in April. Doug and me had only been on Cape Cod a couple of days and we were I think it is safe to say fairly stunned and shell shocked to actually be there and were somewhat terrified by the fact that we were to give a workshop in just another day or so's time and still feeling rather rough from the time difference issue. We had gone for a walk down to a lake that Hollis had told us about and were just sitting in the sun being calm. I remember it being a lovely afternoon and I remember feeling the warmth in the sun and today I was neither having a lovely afternoon nor feeling any warmth.
My little day dream ended rather abruptly when Alan knocked on the door and brought my post in.
Anyway what it did do was remind me that I hadn't yet shared the pots that made their ways home with me. These pictures I took not long after I got back and now the pots are all ensconced around the house doing their jobs and being used and enjoyed. Hopefully I'll get all your names correct and attached tot he right pots, my apologies if I get muddled.
So above we have tea bowls by: John Ferraris (NC), David Stuempfle (Seagrove NC) and Hollis Engley (Cape Cod MA).

A very well used mug by Hollis, beaker from Bulldog Pottery (Seagrove NC) and another from Brad Lail (Seagrove NC).
Slab dish by Guy Wolff (Washington CT).

Mr Dan Finnegan (Fredericksburg VA)

Jug by Kevin Crowe (Amherst VA).

Goat by Naomi Dalgleish (Bakersville NC), penguins by Anna Couper (Australia) and wee fat birdie at the front by Becky Story (NC).

Two by Mr Michael Kline (Bakersville NC).

Wee jar from the apprentice at From The Ground Up Pottery (Seagrove NC), lovely dish by the lovely guys at Whynot Pottery, Meredith and Mark (Seagrove NC) and Ang Walford (Australia).

Paper plate by Michael Kline.

Oh heavens! Dish by Michael Hunt, (Bakersville NC)

Sweetie tiny spoon rest, slipped its way into my luggage just before I came home, Ron Philbeck (Charlotte NC).
I think that is the lot of them. They are all special and each of them reminds me of the different places we visited and the great times we had and all the laughs, sometimes so much laughing that there were tears and belly aches as a result. What a crazy wonderful incredible amazing mind blowing trip of a life time. To you all thank you once again. There are so many more stories that could be told (trip round the lake in a posh boat, hammocks and grapes, baseball / rounders) and some will probably appear at random points in the blog but others will probably be best told 'in the flesh' so to speak and yet others that just don't translate to people that weren't there at the time (hatchet man, frisbee, moonshine) but that to those of us that were there are just the funniest, warmest times.
Ahhhhhh it seems so very long ago but yet memories can take me there at the drop of a hat.x

Blossoms, Fruit and Orchards

2011-10-15T05:12:00.000-07:00

Go and see it if you get the chance, there is some really lovely work there from a great variety of artists and makers. The two pieces I chose of mine to go have both been sold already and so there are now two new pieces of mine in there.

Printing Printing Printing

2011-10-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

I had a lucky day last week when I was able to spend the day in the print room at Gracefield learning new stuff. I do enjoy learning new stuff but I am prone to getting a little waylaid by these things and maybe losing track of where I should be. Printing, I did some of on my foundation at uni and then didn't do any more until I spent that day with Lisa Hooper last year. I do have a certain something that draws me to prints whenever I am in galleries, there's something about it that strongly appeals to me.

I got the chance to do some non toxic etching. I've only ever done it with acid baths and copper plate before but this is on zinc plate, the ground is made with acrylic floor polish and black ink and the solution to etch in is copper sulphate which apparently doesn't give off the nasty fumes that the traditional methods do.

This is Tina who was teaching the processes.
The print of the owl at the top of the page is done in dry point, I've never done that before at all. Again traditionally it is done on metal plate. This though was done into acetate though with a sharp pin. Of course the 'plate' won't last anywhere near as long as a metal plate would but I likes the result, and it's surprising that it would work at all really.
This fat boy was the etched plate. He's a bit bog eyed isn't he. Shame. So that was my exciting day last week. I think the printing techniques do have a link with the sgraffito and trailing that I do everyday. It was interesting seeing the pieces made by the others with me who are all artists by which I mean they do paintings and drawings and not pots. Their style of drawing is so very different from mine. They draw as I feel that 'proper' drawings should be done. My drawings, to me, tend to feel very childish. I always worry about my drawing skills or lack there of. Most of the time they do what I want them to do even if I don't ever feel they are something to show off and of course trailing slip demands a particular way of working anyway which seems to work for me.

Anyway maybe when I have some of that illustrious 'free time' I should go and spend a bit of time in the print room again, it's pretty well equipped and it's not really that far away. In the mean time I am making pots for an exhibition in Carlisle and one in Penrith and some Christmas stock too. Today has been good, I got a whole list of orders thrown and a decent dent made in the first exhibition list. Feels good.
On a Biscuit update in case you were wondering, she has turned into a right wee monkey, not literally you understand. One night a week or so ago I woke up not understanding what was going on and why I was being jabbed in the hip from underneath the bed. I discovered the cat sitting under the bed amusing herself by prodding the mattress between the wooden slats.
Now she has mastered the art of the cat flap. I have spent the last two weeks trying to give a cat flap usage lesson each morning, you can imagine, me kneeling on the floor head butting the cat flap and the cat sitting next to me with a very puzzled and slightly amused look on her face before about turning and heading to sit in the window sill. She got the out bit fairly easily but the in bit took a lot longer. Last week she brought us her first offerings of a tiny pair of kidneys. Yum, we had them on pizza.
She now spends most of the night out gallivanting and fraternizing with cows and pheasants and owls and heaven knows what else and then comes in with muddy feet and wanders about all over the house, yes we can tell exactly where she's been, seems there was a party in the bath room last night! Hope she doesn't start trying to bring her new friends in for late night raves.

Fire in the stove day

2011-10-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

Today I conceded defeat and lit the stove, it was long fingered gloves on the ride to work day and lighting the stove to get some warmth in the place day. I came home and found this tiny little rose in a bottle on the kitchen table, Paul had found it while 'gardening'. (Name the potters if you can).

Look! New toy! I haven't used it yet though. I bought it from someone who didn't want it any more and just happened to be in Lancaster at a time that I was passing through Lancaster and it all worked out almost perfectly. I'll maybe try it next week, bit scared to dirty it really.
Scary bright picture of some of those new wee jugs. Nice jugs, not so good photography.

The big fat new finger wipey / traily birdies. This jug is on it's way to America now, the pots for the Phili show are all packed and gone way with the shippers.

These wee fatties are away too but I want to make some more of them I like the shape.

I have been trying to throw today but have failed rather miserably. I have three ish exhibitions to put together before I head to America and although I know what I want for them I failed to make any dent on the list today. I was trying to throw fat jugs but they were rubbish, one has survived from the 5 but even that might not get so far as a handle. Hopefully next week will be more successful.

This panel has headed away too, I really hope I've sent the right pots for the show. It's hard enough packing for a show that's 5 hours drive away but for something that you aren't even going to be at for another 5 weeks and is the other side of the world as near as dam it, well that's hard to get your head around.

Jugs and Kiwis

2011-10-03T13:23:00.001-07:00

More jugs, these again all being well for me to take to Philadelphia, I now have a lead free honey glaze that has been certified as suitable to send to the USA - big relief, not as juicy as mine but needs must. I have to deliver the pots this wednesday ready to go by sea all the way across that big blue wobbly thing that mermaids live in (name that TV show in one). They are based on some oldies but goodies (the jugs that is) and if you pay attention you can see the image that I was looking at in the background. The handle is nothing like the one on the original pot, the pot is one I saw at Blackwell years ago as part of the Synge Craven slipware collection.

And another.
We had a visit this weekend from a New Zealand friend of ours, Russell who we spent a bit of time with in Dunedin when we were out there in 2006 (he lives in Perth in Australia now though). He took us out and about then and now was our turn to do the honours. We wanted to pop out to Wigtown as it was the book festival so while in that area we went up to visit Andy Priestman at his pottery at Glentrool.

Here is Russell in Andy's place inspecting the pots. I do find it always so peaceful there and the pots are fab and the paintings are stunning too. One day I'd love a painting but we don't have a big enough wall to do one justice at the moment so I had to content myself with a stunning wee porcelain bowl with an iron bleed in it. I had my blackberry and apple crumble from it on saturday night.

We took Russell up onto the Queen's Way and showed him the wild goat park (really wild you know, big pointy teeth and wielding clubs!)

and then we went down the Raiders Road to the beautiful Otter's Pool.

So that was that, we had a great time and it was lovely to have him here. He's now winding his way down to Stoke and then on to London to meet his twin sister.

Autumn Days

2011-09-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

Autumn means berry hunting with my Cubs, they were making autumn collections this week, they looked great though not entirely edible.

I was away in London at the weekend at Ceramics in the City at the Geffrye Museum. It's one of my favourite shows, it's small and manageable, and friendly and in a fab place. I think I probably say that every time I go there but it's true. This time it was a great show. I sold lots of pots which was great and met many old friends and new ones too. I really enjoyed it.

I traveled down with my friend and fellow potter James Hake, we left his place just north of Lancaster at half four on Thursday morning - yikes! It was fun to spend some time catching up with him too, we don't meet up very often at all.

Back home this week to last minute panicking in the way that only I can panic. Flap flap flappety flap, you know the score. My deadline for delivering the pots that are to be shipped to Philadelphia is on wednesday next week, that's been shifted forward by a chunk hence the panic, I had thought that I was doing not too bad really but in fact - nope!

It's the usual story, I don't feel I've done enough or good enough or the right variety. I've still the possibility I suppose to send some on by air at a later date but I wanted to just get it all together and sent in one lot and then I could get on with worrying about other things. We'll see, I need to make a list and try to work out what that will look like in this space that I don't really understand until I can stand in it. These American 'booths' seem a bit different to how I'm used to them over here.

I've a visitor coming this weekend, my friend Russel from New Zealand via Perth Australia. Paul and me spent time with him when we were in New Zealand which I was thinking was two or three years ago but actually is five years ago come December. I'm looking forward to seeing him again. Hope the sun comes back out so he can enjoy Galloway in it's great autumn colours.

When it's good it's very very good and when it's bad it's horrid.

2011-09-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's a lovely sunny September time here in south west Scotland. Perfect drying weather for my pots. Thank goodness!

I've been throwing and handling and slipping and trying to get through my list. After what feels like months of things just not happening finally it all feels good and it seems like things might actually be about to come together. For throwing the clay has been just right, the shapes have been apearing as if by magic, the slips are just smooth and lump free and flowing and because I have so many things to decorate I'm getting into it and it's all just happening wonderfully. It feels great! These jugs like the one above are just 1lb and they are good fun. I made 10 of them and I really like them, might do some more.

Here's one of the Doug Fitch influenced jugs. It's got my new American friendly glaze on the inside which I completely forgot was clear and so leaves a rather weird white rim to the jug where it goes over the slip but I do have an iron stained version of the glaze so that's ok. As long as I remember next time.

New pots too, fresh out of the kiln ready to come with me down to Ceramics in the City at the Geffrye Museum (see previous post if you want the details).

Lots of new little plates, I really like this size of plate, they can be quick and fun and hopefully not too pricey.

This is trailing over finger wipey slip. Did I ever tell you how much I love slip?

The first of a series of panels to take over to the PMA Craft Show in Philadelphia soon oh so soon.

Oh and crazy dragons have come to town again.
The "Still Movement" exhibition is coming to a close this weekend, Saturday 24th September is the final day for seeing it at Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries. It would be lovely to show it somewhere else. If you know anywhere that you think it would suit or who you think might be interested to show it please let me know. I've still some more pictures from that to blog too.

A wee bit of a silly kitty cat that blends in with the carpet.

MadeByHandOnline and Ceramics in the City

2011-09-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

Well I popped around the long way to work this morning as it was such a lovely morning, very autumnal oh yes, misty and wet grass but blue skies and heck it wasn't raining nor blowing a gale. In celebration of the autumn which I do love, it's my favourite time of year, here are some new pots for sale on MadeByHandOnline. They are all oak leaf pots and I hope you like them.

This weekend boys and girls is Ceramics in the City time in London at The Geffrye Museum once again. It's such a lovely show, I really enjoy it. Here's all the details for those of you that might be in the area at the time. I hope to see some of you there.

It opens thursday evening with a private view and then continues friday, saturday and sunday.

Say hello if you come by.

Still Movement Volume III

2011-09-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

Here you go, some more images from 'Still Movement'. This first one is 'Of Reeds', the image of Phil's that it is worked from is just further down the post here. Thought I'd show you where these pieces came from too as it might be interesting.

Each of these panels of mine is approximately 22 x 22cm and they are about 3cm deep, each has a hanging loop on the back too just in case you don't want to grout them into your fireplace.

This is Phil McMenemy's image 'Reeds'. This particular version of it is the same size as my panels and is block mounted and heat sealed. Do feel free to contact Phil if you would like any more information about the images and the options that are available.

This is the full image 'Reeds' that I used.
Next up we have 'Grasses'. Again Phil's image that inspired this is below. What is rather odd is that I didn't ever have a colour proper copy of this image when I was working on my pieces. All I had was a dodgy print out from my computer when the ink cartridge was running out and it's a bit grey and streaky as a result. I'd been using the white slips brushed on for both of these pieces and though I'd maybe used it too thinly on these plates but when they came out finished they looked remarkably similar in tone to the photograph.

The plates are if I remember rightly about 40cm diameter - ish. I'm really pleased with them.

Phil McMenemy 'Grasses'.

A Bit Doug Fitch

2011-09-12T15:44:00.000-07:00

I slipped these two jugs this morning. It's crazy wild gales here at the moment. Now I quite like a bit of a storm but this has been nasty today. I 'rode' to work this morning - derrrrrr. Not a clever move, I had to pedal frantically to get down the hill, not good. There's lots of big branches down and the power has been in and out all day. Anyway I was thinking wild windy weather and trying to get the slip things from the tiles I'd been making onto three dimensional things. Before I knew it I'd put these panels around the jugs that were a bit Doug Fitch. Anyway I soon put more twiddly bits in them so it disguises the fact that they started a bit DF.

I am still working honestly!

2011-09-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures of wet slip for those of you who share my passion for the lovely stuff. I am mainly making pots now for the PMA Craft Show which is speeding towards me at a fair rate of knots. I'm also finishing a last few pots for Ceramics in the City at the Geffrye Museum coming up the weekend after next.

I'm always really pleased to be accepted for the show at the Geffrye Museum in London, I really enjoy it. It's such a pleasant way to do a show in London, it's great and the museum is very special too. It's on from the 23rd to 25th September this year, that's the friday and saturday from 10am till 5pm and is open from 12 noon till 5pm on the sunday.

I've been working lots on these flat pieces which is still rather odd for me. They are a continuation of the "Of Reeds" pieces that I made for the "Still Movement" exhibition (still open until September 24th if you haven't had a chance to visit it yet). Hint hint.

Finally for you here is a gingery Biscuit.

And here are biscuits of ginger, we are being very careful not to mix them up.

Still Movement Volume II

2011-09-06T13:04:00.000-07:00

Forming

Here we go with Volume II of Still Movement. These three images are all Phil McMenemy's view of my making processes. This is where we started with the whole collaboration thing and as a result we have hundreds of images. What Phil wanted to get was a not completely obvious view of a potter making pots. This is harder than it would seem to be.

Centered

We neither of us wanted this part of the exhibition to be a story board of how to make a pot start to finish. Of that much we were certain. Phil's interest in capturing motion in a still image is what I think you can see throughout them all.

Motion

There are a couple more images that fall into this section of the exhibition but I shall save them for another post. In the mean time I hope you enjoy these.

Just for your information too, finished images are block mounted and heat-sealed for complete safety to protect from light damage and are limited to 5 off only at 24”x16”, the price for these sizes are £145. If you are at all interested in them and would like more information or to discuss alternatives, please drop me a line or contact Phil and we can help you out. Thanks.

Still Movement Volume I

2011-09-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

Blue Line

I'm going to drip feed these images to you. It's for those of you who are too far away to visit the "Still Movement" exhibition which is on at Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries until September 24th. Closed sundays and mondays though. The whole show is the result of a collaboration between myself and fine art photographer Phil McMenemy.
In this post you have Phil McMenemy's photographs which he took for the show and then gallery photographs (by Colin Tennant) which mainly are of the pieces that I made for the show.

Reach jugs

Each of my pieces have been made with one of Phil's images in mind. I eventually close four of his images to work with, I'll give you those in another post too.

Stages

Myself and Phil spent an awful lot of time together talking about this exhibition, and drinking tea and worrying about this exhibition and eating cake and then out and about taking my pots out into the landscapes that Phil loves to photograph and well, drinking tea.

Ice Line (photograph) with Crack (slipware dish set, these can be wall hung too)

This piece is inspired by the huge image there on the wall of a crack in a frozen loch, my interpretation is a series of 12 dishes which range from about 5" diameter to about 15" diameter.

I don't have the skills necessary to produce huge pots (yet!) and the gallery space at Gracefield is rather large as you can see. My domestic pots would be utterly lost if I just placed one or two of them in the space. I didn't want to use any plinths in the end as I'm a bit sick of them and this gave me the chance to do something different. My way of creating scale was to use groups and sets of pots.

Nestle

Phil's work is very particularly Phil I think and I love the way he has placed my pots into his views of Galloway.

Still Movement

The photographs and the pots that form the exhibition are for sale, if you would like more information please just contact me and I can pass you on to Phil or Gracefield. Let me know what you think of the show. I know it's not quite the same not seeing it in the space. The rest will come over the next week or so.

Just for your information too, finished images are block mounted and heat-sealed for complete safety to protect from light damage and are limited to 5 off only at 24”x16”, the price for these sizes are £145. If you are at all interested in them and would like more information or to discuss alternatives, please drop me a line or contact Phil and we can help you out. Thanks.

Biscuit O'Clock

2011-08-29T12:40:00.000-07:00

Here's better pictures of Biscuit for you. First the USB thing there next to the cat does not plug into the scar on her side, let me make that quite clear. Second yes she is ginger and yes she does match me.
Here she is starting her pottery appreciation lessons, here she is being introduced to a Paul Young sheep tree.
This is her eating from her Ron Philbeck owl bowl, she chose that one all by herself. She does a lot of eating and a massive amount of sleeping in the sunshine, she's probably exhausted after living rough and feeding four kittens for the last month or two.

Here she is with my other favourite being in the house though I think Paul may be being slightly neglected in favour of the puss at the moment. I commented that she looked really tiny next to Paul, his response was something along the lines of thank heavens else we'd have gotten ourselves the wrong sort of cat, it would end up a bit like this. Do you know that book? It's great to read if you don't know it already.

In amongst being Biscuit obsessed and making sure she's eating and drinking and keeping her scar clean, I've been making, shhh I don't want to say it out loud at this time of year, Christmas decorations. I know! Crazy huh. I've an order for to go to somewhere a bit different. I'll be blogging that one once it all goes live. Keep an eye open for that in November.

We are very lucky.

2011-08-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

We are very lucky in Britain, we don't get extremes of anything weather-wise really. We get rain but not generally flooding, we get storms but not really tornadoes or hurricanes, we get sunshine (yes we do come on you can remember it) but not so much that we have country wide droughts we have occasional earth tremors but nothing that does anything other knock a picture slanted or maybe shift a slate off a roof, our volcanoes are all extinct. This was yesterday's storm here, we got some flash flooding and there were roads closed for a little while, it knocked the power out and the phone lines but as I say Britain is fairly safe from these extremes of climate work. I rather like a good thunder and lightening storm to be honest, as long as it's not right over my head. The one we saw in Shelby was pretty spectacular, I enjoyed that one.

To my friends in the USA, especially you all on the Eastern Sea Board, take care and keep safe.

Ooooooo! surprise addition!

2011-08-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

Meet Biscuit. Our new accidentalish addition. She's a sweetie, listen to that pneumatic drill of a purr. Off for a cuddle.

Flat wet stuff

2011-08-24T12:00:00.001-07:00

I've been getting my slip trailing wrist back into the swing of things this last day or so. Hope you like them.

Not many words for you today. Too tired.

Sorry.
Oh and some finished tiles, these are approximately 6" square, the wet ones are more like 8".

I'm trying to get some of the lose washy slip that I was using lots for the Still Movement exhibition combined with my trailing.

Still unsure how I can translate all that onto pots.

We Stopped!

2011-08-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

Only for three days but we did stop, together, for the first time in heaven knows when. Last week I lost the plot and it was time for a bit of R and R. Paul was here and I was here and we had no pressing commitments, well not so pressing as couldn't wait till this week, and we took our tent and headed out west for three days. We camped at Sandhead right next to the beach. We got fab weather. We had a great time. It's been an age since we were together and not at home and not working. We cycled out to the Mull of Galloway to the lighthouse on the edge of the world there, warm and sunny and not too windy.

We popped into Port Logan where we recreated a photo for my mum of me from years ago on the previous embodiments of these rocking springy things in the playground. I find it hard to resist a playground toy play.

We went to Logan Gardens, this is the botanic garden out west and it's full of palms and stuff that you wouldn't at all think it were possible to grow in south west Scotland.

We also went to the Logan Fish Pond which I whole heartedly recommend. It's formed in a Silurian blow hole and was made into a larder in 1788 by the then laird of Logan House. It's brilliant, it's like walking into a little haven, well except for the conger eels that will take your finger off if you are daft enough to put one in the water. The chap that showed us round was full of information and stories and was a great guide.
If you get to go at feeding time that must be great.

We paddled in the sea of course and I couldn't resist a swim, it's just too tempting. It was surprisingly unfreezing too, it wasn't the temperature that takes your breath away when you first submerge. I was pleasantly surprised.

Corr a break. What a wonderful idea. We need to do that again sooner rather than later. Stave off the insanity for a wee while longer. Back to work this week but feeling rather rejuvenated even after such a short trip.

End of summer blues

2011-08-18T10:54:00.001-07:00

By the phases of the moon.

It's not officially the end of summer but the dew on the grass in the mornings and the definite nip in the air and that certain smell that you get is certainly doing more than hinting at it. As for the blues well whatever time of year it is they're hear. I have now managed to get control back of my email and am assured that my bank accounts are safe. This week a hmmm, what shall I call them? Swine, we'll go with swine for now but I may well call them something slightly harsher when not writing something for the public domain, hacked into my email addresses, my ebay, my facebook, and if they could get that far then heaven only knows what else they can get at. No my passwords aren't all the same thing and the words are so random that you'd never guess them in a million years so I can only assume that actually you don't need the passwords if you've got a mind for criminal activity. I've been apparently selling tickets and buying guitars too on ebay. It's not put me in a good mood frankly and I probably wasn't the most jolly person in the world to start with this week. The thing that has freaked me the most is the swine sitting in his flat in Tower Hamlets (well that's the address they changed the ebay delivery address to) and emailing me from MY OWN email address! I have spent hours and hours on the phone trying to sort things out and regain control of my life. I know it's sad but a lot of my life is associated with the computer, I don't really like the things but it's a huge part of my communications with my friends and of course my business relies heavily on it. Suddenly it really makes you rethink it. I like what I can access on the computer, I like that I can chat to my friends across the world, I like that I can share my pots and some of my life with you all and that you in return can share with me but now I'm scared of it too. Needless to say I have so many new and complicated passwords that my brain is about to explode into a big gooey terracotta tinged mess. Hmmm, maybe my day dream of living in a cave in the hills isn't such a bad thought after all...

Surprise visitor

2011-08-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

Been a funny old day, very unsettled weather, a bit wild, very windy too, makes me a bit jittery and unsettled myself when it's like that. Made for some great skies though.

Yesterday was my first proper day making in I don't like to think how long. I was half way through a board of 12oz jugs when I had a knock at the door and met a German gentleman by the name of Dieter who is a film maker. He told me he is making a film about traditional craftspeople who live as he put it, on the edges of Europe, and he was recommended to visit me by a basket maker friend of mine, Geoff. Could he do some filming now? Well slightly taken aback, I know it's hard to believe but it isn't every day that I get film makers turning up on my doorstep. Just carry on doing what you're doing he said and he'd work around me. So I did and I made another board of jugs and some mugs and slipped some waiting tiles and generally carried on and wittered away as I usually would. We spent a pleasant few hours, had lunch in the sunshine and then he was off on his way. Heaven only knows where that film might end up!

Iron Men and Hatfield Art in Clay

2011-08-14T04:38:00.000-07:00

It seems like an age ago now that I packed up the van once again and set of south to yet another show. This time I went via Crosby Beach near Liverpool to meet my good friend Debbie. Deb is a potter that works on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands and is now very unused to beaches where the sea is chilly and there is a breeze that isn't warm. I was at uni with Deb and she doesn't get back to the UK very often and needless to say I don't exactly pass by the Caribbean all too regularly either. Anyway for a long time I've been wanting to visit Anthony Gormley's "Another Place" with his sculptures of iron men but never had the chance so here was my chance.

Here's Deb and her mum befriending number 89. See the difference in attire. Those of us used to British summers happy to be paddling about in shorts and t-shirts, those of the group used to slightly warmer conditions wrapped in fleece jumpers.
I always love seeing Deb again, we sat up late catching up and talking about pots (probably boring Matt her fresh husband to bits with picture after picture of pots and kilns from the both of us).
Then I set off the next day down to Hatfield and to Art in Clay. I've never been at this show before and was pleased to be there. I was opposite Lisa Hammond whose stand is always full of sickeningly lovely pots. Being the muppet that I am I have still barely ever managed to say more than hello to her but I did have a good chat to her last apprentice.

I was next to my friend Clare Wakefield who I went to Germany with last year and with whom it is hard not to spend the majority of the time laughing with.

On my other side was Guy Routledge whose work I used to sell many moons ago when I worked in the craft shop in the Royal Exchange in Manchester so it was great to meet him. I had good neighbours.

The helpers who are about all weekend at Hatfield were fab. When I arrived I was asked whether I was on my own and as I was I was assigned a helper who came and helped me unload all my stuff. Then during the weekend there were a host of helpers who would take over your stand for you while you had a lunch break or if you wanted to watch one of the demos. A huge thank you to all those who helped me at various points over the weekend and also my tinniest mermaid spotting helper too.
Hatfield was a good show for me. There were certainly mixed reports, lots of poor sales for people but I was lucky, and it did my confidence good after a couple of not quite so buoyant ones.
Now I'm home again and sorting out pots to send to The Whitehouse Gallery next week and then to get on with work for the PMA Craft Show in Philadelphia, the shipping date is mid September...

Still Movement

2011-08-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

Still Movement - Art in Clay

2011-08-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

Today has been spent at Gracefield Art Centre in Dumfries with Phil McMenemy. We have been working for the last long while on a a collaborative exhibition. It is called "Still Movement". We have been excited, terrified, frustrated, thrilled, enthused and now it's time to put it all together and see what it looks like. How utterly mind blowingly scary. At the same time how very exciting. More pictures once it's all together.
Whilst sitting have tea with Paul Young on monday morning this daft birdie flew in, hit the window and fell into a mug. It recovered and flew off later but not before a blue tit appeared flapping in the chamber of the wood burner. I opened the doors to find a soot covered bemused looking baby bird. After that another 4 or 5, I lost count, fell out of the stove. I haven't had it lit for a few months so it seems a nest has been built at the top and the contents of said nest have all just fallen out.

ART IN CLAY AT HATFIELD HOUSE

Tomorrow I'll be off down south to Art in Clay at Hatfield House, come along come along and visit. I've never been before, it's another new thing for me.

Potfest

2011-07-31T15:02:00.000-07:00

Home from Potfest. I'm pretty exhausted but of course my brain is in overdrive - again. Just had a hot soak in the bath and some food. It's been a weird weekend. Some great parts, sales wise it started off great but didn't manage to keep that momentum unfortunately. It's been a bit demoralising the last couple of shows. I've been working so hard and I felt that I had the best pots I've ever made. I was really excited about showing them and pleased with how they looked on my stand but now I feel very different. I know it'll all be better after a good night's sleep. I'm not entirely sure what to do next though - other than sleep.

The great bits though were meeting so many people that I know already, both potters and visitors. Saturday evening saw a few of us visit Castlerigg stone circle near Kendal. A lovely evening for it, then a pub meal before heading back to the camp fire fun which I bailed out of being my usual muppet self. Small groups are great, bigger groups are maybe just not my thing.

From the left: Rachel Wood, Paul Smith, Paul Young, Christine Smith, Kathryne Winfrey, me, Dylan Bowen.

Potfest time of Year

2011-07-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

Well I'm home from Art in Action, I unpacked and did the washing and now it's packing up time for Potfest in the Park! This one is only an hour and a half or so down the road so much less traveling than last week. Great to meet lots of blog readers last weekend, thanks for saying hi.

I'm just wondering whether to take this plate to Potfest or whether to keep hold of it and get a proper picture taken of it before I risk letting it go anywhere. I'm really very pleased with it you see.
This is the back of it.

So Potfest in the Park, this friday to sunday, 29th to 31st at Hutton in the Forest, over 100 potters exhibiting their wares in this glorious setting. Come and see us all if you are around the Cumbria area, and if you're not around the area it really is well worth taking a trip out.

Off again

2011-07-19T14:30:00.000-07:00

This time it's Art in Action time. Are you going to come and visit? Make sure you allow yourselves plenty of time it is a full full event, everything from music and dance to craft and fine art, demonstrations, classes and lectures. There absolutely has to be something for everyone.

www.artinaction.org.uk

See you there or else back here next week.

Slip Slop Slap

2011-07-16T12:34:00.000-07:00

More slippy sloppy slabs in the pipeline. I think they'll make more sense when I show you were there are coming from and where they are heading but that will have to wait for the time being.

Some tall weird looking jug forms. I threw them yesterday and popped the necks on them this morning. They are very definitely inspired by some pots in the York collection. I hope they will look better with lips and handles on them though the lips and handles will be Hannah's lips and handles as I appear to be completely unable to make lips and handles in any other way than my way.
I slopped slip on some small plates and decorated them too this afternoon including a commemorative one for a friend who is getting married shortly.

Here they are with their tops and lips on, there are a half a dozen of them I think I made in 3lb, 5lb and 7lb sizes. Very disappointed that the 7lb one is only about a half inch taller than the 5lb one. Shame.
It's been an odd day weather wise. Rainy this morning when I popped into town then by the time I got back home it was sunny and warm and then I rode home tonight through a great thunder storm and got drenched to the skin. It was quite nice though after the clay filled slip spraying warm day that I had had. I do like a good storm.

Still Movement - progress

2011-07-13T13:20:00.000-07:00

For the last year or so I have been working with Phil McMenemy who is a fine art photographer and a very good friend of mine on a collaborative exhibition to be held at Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries during August and September.

So this is the process of one of my pieces for the show. It's a series of dishes from 8oz in weight up to 5lb 8oz. All my pieces for the show are my interpretations of Phil's images. This is from his Ice Crack image.

Most of it is currently in the kiln, it would have been good to get it all in the one firing just in case but it just wasn't to be.

I lost some pieces the other weekend with the build up of heat in my workshop after I shut it up for the night. I've sussed that problem out now, I leave a window open.
This is just a wee sneak preview of the work I have. You'll have to wait to see it all.

Manchester to Blackpool done!

2011-07-11T14:29:00.001-07:00

This card is not at all to do with the bike ride but it is lovely. I was given it on friday by Hazels' visiting grandchildren along with some wee presents too. What sweeties.

So here's me at about a quarter to 7 on sunday morning a bit flappy and not quite knowing what I was letting myself in for and a bit scared to say the least. Paul reckons I had gone up a level from general flap into high pitched making no sense mode.

Here's the route, all 65ish miles of it. It set off from Old Trafford in Manchester, out through Salford, Worsley and then through Westhaughton (I have family and friends live in Westhaughton but at 8am they were probably all still tucked in their beds). About ten minutes in it started raining and boy did it rain! It lasted twenty minutes or so during which time I was thinking oh heavens this is not going to be fun. I was also wondering at the pain of what would soon become 8000 pairs of chaffed buttocks if the rain were to continue. Thankfully it didn't. The sun came out and that was that for the rest of the ride. Not too hot fortunately until I arrived at the end when it got really warm but I'd finished by then.

Here's what I had when I got to the end. Damn tasty it was too. I'm not a fast cyclist as Paul will attest to so we worked out that it would take me around 6 hours going by my average of 12mph so that made it that I would get to the finish at about 1pm. Hence when I arrived at half past 11 neither Paul nor my mum's cousin Karen who both had planned to be there were anywhere even close to Blackpool. Oops! There was a big crowd of people at the end which was lovely and they were all cheering and clapping bless them, probably not for me at all but heck it was nice.

Anyway it was quite good fun and it felt good and I've ridden down to work again today so all's well. I am very aware of where my calf muscles are today but apart from that I feel pretty dandy. There were around 8000 cyclists taking part, it was mighty busy out and about, I am not used to riding with anymore than one other person so it was very odd.

And here's me at the end. When I rang Paul to see where he was he sounded most perturbed that I had finished bless him. I was stunned, I had no idea I'd be able to do it like that, and to still feel capable of walking at the end was great. I feel pretty pleased to be honest. Don't get me wrong there were speedy slinky types wizzing past me all the time and they were obviously putting in no effort whatsoever, they were just built for speed (both the bikes and the riders) and by heck they did it.
Thank you to everyone who has sponsored me, you are all very kind, it is all going to a very worthy cause.
Just to finish on, some lovely sloppy slaked down wild clay. This is the stuff Alan brought me out of the field up on the farm here. It had lots of stones in it. It feels good like this, I need to dry some out and give it a whirl, see what it's like.
Back to it today at work, loads to do, loads going on and more in the pipeline. Right tis past my bed time, I'll turn into a pumpkin if I'm not careful. Toodle pip.

Manchester to Blackpool

2011-07-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

On sunday morning I am cycling (all being well) from Manchester to Blackpool. It's a charity ride and I am doing it for The Christie which is a specialist cancer hospital in Manchester. A friend of mine was treated there a few years back.
I am beginning to get a bit scared about it, as is my want with everything I do. It's around about 65 miles though they don't tell you the exact route till you get there, lets hope it's not via Exeter this year. My grandad used to cycle from Bolton to Blackpool regularly, on his day off so partly it's for him and partly it's just because this time last year I couldn't do very much at all and it was a bit scary for me. Now I'm feeling pretty grand (though I have no doubt my whole body will hurt by the time sunday is over with) and I feel like I should be making the most of it so I decided over the winter that I would sign up for this.
So if you feel like sponsoring me you can do it online here at the JustGiving site. To those who have already given money thank you very much, I hope I can do you proud. Otherwise just wish me puncture less tyres and not too much of a head wind and a soft cushion for the way home. Paul is on duty for collecting me in Blackpool and has strict instructions to be placing fish and chips in front of me fairly quickly.
See you after the trip!

Flowers and Stress and Tea

2011-07-07T12:53:00.000-07:00

Somebody took some notice of one of my past blog posts bless them and came to visit this week armed with a posy of flowers from their garden. Thanks Zoe!

This week I have been mostly rolling slabs of clay. It's damn hard work isn't it. I'm getting myself in a tizzy most of the week after I lost a good bit of work to the heat at the weekend. Honestly we never usually have that problem here. Crazy huh! Anyway what it has meaned (along with the fact that I have realised once again that my electric kiln is not the huge monster that I think it is) is that I am having to have a major rethink for the collaboration exhibition with Phil McMenemy that is coming up. As it happens the rethink may actually be better than the original plan but it's been hard trying to leave the plan behind and accept that I can't do it and then to make the firm decision of what to do now. I think I'm on to it now so fingers crossed no more disasters.
Spot the second visitor. I get lots of birds coming in for a visit, they come in and flap about a bit and tweet at me and poo all over the pots and then generally find their own way out again. The one below managed to fly into the window and stunned himself a wee bit. I took him back outside and he sat on my hand for ages trying to get his head back together. Little sweetie.

So slabs and slip. Damn it I do love slip so much. It is delicious and no matter how many times I think that and no matter how many pots I coat in slip, when I take the lid off the bucket and stick my arm in to stir it up it always gives me a shiver of delight.

So I have done a bit of sitting drinking tea and thinking too this week and a lot of pacing up and down the workshop drinking tea and thinking too. I often have these grand plans but all too often find that I have neither the right skills nor the right tools nor mainly the right knowledge to get them done. One day I might get to be a bit cleverer and a bit more sensible. Fingers crossed.

USA Slipware Tour Volume IV

2011-07-03T12:06:00.001-07:00

So how many years ago is this then? It feels like forever ago but today sitting here in Bonnie Scotland in the scorching sun I was reminded of the balmy days in Shelby in North Carolina back at the end of April. So here are the dream team, Ron, Doug and Ang sitting eating (we spent a lot of time eating I think) on Ron and Sarah's porch. Hazel I still think we should get a porch and rocking chairs, I know we probably only need them for three days a year but can't you be tempted?
We landed here, our final stop on the jet setting slipware American tour 2011 to spend just over a week with Ron and Sarah. Both Doug and me had met these two sweet and darling and hysterically funny people in Devon the summer before last and we felt like we were going home. Weird to be so comfortable with people when in reality you barely know them.

So we had a day off, a day of resting really and catching up on doing not very much, blimey it gets noticeably hotter the further south we traveled. After a couple of days Ron and Sarah took us up into the hills heading for Ashville. We popped into the clay suppliers and then up to eat a fab breakfast in the town, eating was a strong theme of that day, oh and judging by the next photo so was drinking. Talk about bad influences, these people I was traveling with were just terrible!

Ashville is full of cafes and galleries and shops and pubs and restaurants and was a great place, we had a fab day just wandering and enjoying ourselves.

Can you believe things like this actually happen? This poster had us utterly bemused and befuddled.

So we were here for the last of the demos, and this is the arts centre where it was to be held. Here we met bloggers Gay Judson, John Ferraris and Becky Storey who again it feels like we have known for an age but again have never met in person before. Yet again there wasn't enough time to be able to really enjoy all these people properly, another theme of the trip, pottery, time, food, drink, fun and friends.

I think we turned into a bunch of giddy kippers at the end of the demo day, here we are taking part in the how many potters and partners can you fit on a bench challenge.

There were many surreal moments on the trip and the following day, Easter sunday brought with it another one. We had been very kindly invited by friends of Ron and Doug (small world) to have lunch with them and their family. After a lovely meal and an Easter egg hunt around their immaculate garden we were taken out on the boat for a tour of the lake that they live on. Honestly it was like walking onto a film set. What a day! Thank you to Rod and Freda for your hospitality there.
Then up into the mountains to visit the area of Penland. First stop, Michael Hunt and Naomi Dalgleish. I can't really write much about this, it blew me away. I loved where they lived and the way they lived and the pots they made and the people they were. It left me reeling as a result.

Corr flipping blimey.
This dish just had to come home with me, there was no way I could leave it. Made for very heavy hand luggage though.

Then on to meet again after many years of communication, the marvelous Michael Kline. We found Michael in the middle of preparing for a joint exhibition with his wife and I'd have loved to have seen the place just after he has unpacked a kiln load. We saw the graves out the back, the clay pit, the kiln, the pots, and shared juice and popcorn on the steps out the front of his workshop looking out across the valley.

I'm not entirely sure what I was doing here, a small Sound of Music moment maybe, anyway it reminds me of a wonderful day.

Michael's plates that he was using to practice his beautiful brushwork. There's one in my bedroom now and a lovely wee bowl in the kitchen too and a jar on the mantle piece. The pots of the tour will be a whole other post at some point.

Ahhh lovely pots with lovely food. Just perfect.

And then as suddenly as it all began here we were at the end. We'd dropped Ang at the airport the previous day and then it was our turn. Here's the final three fighting back tears yet again as we set off on our journey to the airport.
All that, nearly a month away and there's so much I haven't told, so much that will mean nothing to anyone except the small bundle of us that were there when crazy things happened or we saw things that took our breath away or we laughed so much we thought our stomachs were going to split and couldn't even breath anymore. Or the quiet times when we just sat and watched, the cups of tea and stories we shared, the bees I tried to save from Ron's badminton racket, the snake we saw on our walk with Sarah, the bull frogs we heard croaking late at night in Virginia, the ospreys we watched in Cape Cod and the bird song we listened to all the way along that is so different from that in Britain. It feels like a dream, but oh what a dream. Thank you all.

Earth and Fire Weekend

2011-06-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

Well I've been there and done that and now I'm home again. It was Earth and Fire at Rufford Country Park this weekend just gone. It's the first time I've ever had full stand there, I've been on shared stands a couple of times before but this was a first. It was a good show. Great folks around the place, I met lots of people who I've spoken to before either on the phone or via the internet but never met in person, hello to you all, you know who you are. I sold a good amount of pots too which is fab and I hope you are all enjoying your new pots that you all took home. I did a demo to which as per usual frightened the living daylights out of me, I could see two friendly faces that I just concentrated on trying to talk to and I couldn't even try to look at who else was there. I hope it was ok, you never know do you. The thing I didn't do was buy any pots. I was very good and stayed with my stand for the majority of the time except when I managed to borrow other peoples helpers. I did come home with 2 new pots though, a swap with Toff for a new mug and a wee stunner of a slinky jug from Doug. Paul's response to the later was something along the lines of really how many Doug pots do we need?
The rain fell on the set up day but I managed to unload and set up in the dry, it was a chilly night that night but milder the rest of the time and sunday was blisteringly hot!
I do enjoy that chance to spend some time with great friends and new friends. It's fab.

On the way home I stayed with the lovely Michelle Freemantle in the pretty and completely unknown to me East Ridings area of the country. Bless her for taking in a weary fraught potter for the night. There was no way I would have managed to get home in one piece all the way on the sunday night so it was great to break the journey up. That meant that I could also pop into York on the way back to visit the Honest Pots exhibition at York Art Gallery that I have been wanting to get to for ages. It was put together by Alex McErlain (my tutor and now friend from uni) and Helen Walsh who is the Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts there. I spent a few lovely hours wondering around the gallery, it's not a huge gallery but there are plenty lovely pots to drool over. I think I did squeal out loud on one occasion, and there were probably loads of greasy nose marks on the glass cases for the poor cleaners to get rid of.

Back home and straight back into the making list. In the next month I have to:
-finish the work for the "Still Movement" exhibition at Gracefield Arts Centre.
-sort work for Art in Action.
-sort work for Potfest in the Park.
-make my competition piece for Potfest.
-sort work for Art in Clay at Hatfield House.
-finish an order for a gallery.
-finish the last of the Solway Yacht Club prizes.
-complete a few commissions.
-work on a list and sorting glazes for the Phili show.
That's all I can remember for the time being, I hope there's not much more than that. I was hoping to fire the kiln again too but that is not going to happen until August. At least now I have decided that there is one less thing to worry about for the time being at least.
These slabs are part of the work for the Gracefield show....

Earth and Fire Weekend

2011-06-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

Earth and Fire, this weekend at Rufford Country Park near Ollerton in Nottinghamshire. The weather forecast says the weather is going to be marvelous if you like to be a little damp so come prepared and then you can still spend time enjoying all the wonderful pots on display.

I finally have some pots out that I am quite pleased with but as always I would like another couple of months to really get the ones that I wanted (and still I'd be wanting more). I really like these two plates, especially the Strange Wading Bird one up the top of the post there. These are both coming with me. I have more pictures somewhere of the pots out last week but I seem to have misplaced them on the computer somewhere. I will have filed them somewhere obscure no doubt. I'll have another look next week.

The back sides of these two plates both have trailed patterns too, there's so much scope there for more decoration, is it silly to just keep on trailing?

Three new big jugs and a wee bundle of smaller ones of these, the 2lb versions that I put on the blog last week sometime.
I managed to walk into the corner of a car door yesterday, I had a proper cartoon egg on my forehead for a while there, now the lump has thankfully gone down a lot but it is slightly blue and if I sit with my head in my hands in mid flap then it flipping hurts and when I put my goggles on to grind the stilts off the pots - ouch! Hopefully by tomorrow it'll not be noticeable at all anymore and if it still is, well I have a lot of hair to cover it with...

New pots and news

2011-06-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

More strange wading birds today. It's been another slip fest here today and I am loving it.

I really like this plate above, it's thin white slip and thick white slip and then trailed slip too. Nice looking at this stage.
My trouble is I don't know when to stop. I am finally making some pots that I am excited about again and it is just a matter of days before I have to pack to go to Earth and Fire and I'm making pots that I want to take with me because they are new and exciting to me and so as a result I'll probably do something stupid like blow them up by trying to fire them before they are dry. What I need is time, where can I get some of that? I have so many things that I want to explore and try and do but I never seem to be able to work myself a bundle of time in which to concentrate on doing just that.

This jug below I loved the shape of, he is what the others should have been. However I liked him so much I couldn't work out how to decorate him and ended up just having to do something fast and I fear I messed him up because of that. I was feeling too precious about him.

So my news which I don't think I have told you yet but forgive me if I have is that I am going back to America in November. Who would have thought it? Twice in one year. CraftScotland an organisation who support and promote Scottish craft have been offered space at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, here is their news post about the show. Scotland is the guest country at the craft show this year and I have been offered a stand at it. So there you go, Hannah McAndrew does America twice within 6 months. How utterly crazy. How very exciting though, so come and visit if you can, it'd be wonderful to meet some more of you readers over the other side of the pond. I'll have more news about that as it comes along I'm sure so stay tuned.

In the mean time here's the last of the pots for the day, unpacked a glaze kiln this afternoon and straight away filled it with dry pots to bisque. Time time time running away again.

How scary!?!

2011-06-14T13:18:00.000-07:00

That is the filter on my dust mask, I took it apart to have a look as I was changing it. Makes you think doesn't it.

Alan brought me a bucket full of a lovely present yesterday. He was amused by how easily pleased I am. A bucket of clay and she's happy as Larry (whoever Larry is but I hear he's a happy chappy). He pulled this out of a field on their farm for me, he tells me there's loads but I can't have any more until after the barley has been cut as it's too heavy to carry from the corner where it is. Anyway this is enough to keep me entertained for the time being.

New crazy bird plate. I like him a lot.

I've been throwing slip around like there's no tomorrow, and the sun is shining finally so things are drying out at a sensible rate, I know that if it gets any warmer I'll be complaining straight away that things are drying too fast next.

Things are moving on a pace with the work I am doing with Phil McMenemy for our exhibition in August. It is going to be called "Still Movement" and will be at Gracefield Arts Centre. You'll get proper pictures once it's up and open but for the time being some more tasters of it.

These dishes are for it...

This is Phil working on it...

A few more pictures of slippy sloppy slip to help you through the day.

These are hopefully for Earth and Fire. Fingers crossed.

June!? Really? Could have fooled me!

2011-06-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

"Slip..." has just today closed at the Ruthin Craft Centre in Denbighshire in North Wales. I hadn't ever been to the craft centre before but it's reputation for presenting high quality exciting exhibitions by contemporary craft workers in Britain is second to none. I was pretty dam chuffed to be asked to be a part of the exhibition so when we had the opportunity to visit this week, myself and Amanda it would have been daft to say no. So off we poddled all the way to north wales for the day. Much gossiping and catching up was done on the journey as you can imagine.

"Slip… looks at the diverse styles of makers whose

work falls under the banner of ‘slipware’. This technique is deep rooted within ancient methods of ceramic decoration for example Thomas Toft in the 17th century. Through their skilled use of clays and slips these 21st century artists present a thought-provoking and innovative collection of decorative ceramics.

From traditional approaches to the most modern interpretations, Slip… promises to inform and excite. "

It certainly did both inform and excite me so I hope it did as much for everyone else that saw it. The piece I'd have had had I had the cash and the space in the house and if it hadn't already been sold would have bee the big Dylan Bowen charger that was there. Very lovely piece.
There were a lot of familiar names and in fact I feel honoured to class a few of those in the show as my friends. We had Paul Young with the African lion influence seeping into his pressed dishes, Doug Fitch's with his warm and generous pots and Pru Cooper with her humorous illustrations on pressed dishes and plates.

The show was in the long thin gallery space and everything was beautifully displayed, each maker given a good space and not overcrowded within that. Here was part of my wee display. It's great seeing them displayed by someone else, I wouldn't ever have done that with them myself but I thought they looked great there.

Each of us had a banner with information about who we are and what we do which is printed in English and Welsh. Apparently all those involved in the exhibition had sold work which was great to hear. The price lists on the walls showed very few red dots but they were so I was told just the pieces that were not taken away at the point of sale. As a visitor it looked like sales were slow because of the lack of dots but I was pleased to hear this wasn't the case at all.

Apart from that jaunt which was work really just with added nice lunch and chatter and craft top up last week was mainly trying to get my head into what needs doing next and which needs doing first and flap flap flap I was off again within no time running about in a tizz. I did eventually get back into the swing though and then I had a new lovely ton of clay arrived on wednesday which is waiting for to be made into new things now. I have Earth and Fire in Nottingham coming up at a fair rate of knots and is about to bite me on the bum and scream that it's here and why am I still trying to make pots for it! Yikes.

So friday saw me with freshly cleaned and filled slip trailers trailing away frantically. It's great having a good stock of pots waiting to be trailed because I find I get much more into the flow of it after I've done a few and come 5 o'clock I was just wanting to continue but in fact I had to run home and wolf down some dinner and get to the Scout campsite to meet my Cub Scouts and 120 or so others along with the 50+ Scouts and the 50ish Beaver Scouts who were all converging on the Scout site that we have here in Galloway for their annual camp.

For ages and ages now I've been meaning to blog about Andy Priestman's blog. I've mentioned him and his work a fair few times on here and in fact I saw one of his pots on Ron Philbeck's blog last week. Andy lives up in a stunning part of Galloway, over in Glentrool, he has the sort of view from his place that would make it very difficult to ever do any work what so ever. He makes beautiful pots. Quiet, gentle, soft, elegant and stunning. I know I know I tend to err towards earthenware as my pottery of choice but you know these are lovely pots. I have a few now including a new addition that Andy brought me last week which had been in the firing that I had been at with him just before Spring Fling. So visit his blog and have a look.

In complete contrast to those lovely subtle colours of Andy's pots this is what the Cub Scouts were doing on my base this weekend. The theme of the camp was the circus so we were making circus animals and associated paraphernalia, that crocodile was fab and there was a lion with it's very own ring of fire to jump through. We have had a great weekend, we were lucky with the weather, it's been dry pretty much the whole time and we even had sunshine for a lot of the time, I know you're thinking it's June and you are in the northern hemisphere, of course there'll be sunshine. Ha! It is now pouring down - again and the temperature is a balmy 8 degrees C and we have had the heating on and I'm sitting here wearing my down filled top. Hey Dan come on over any time you want to cool off a bit from your crazy Virginian weather!

So I came back from camp feeling rather battered and worse for wear (how do kids manage to stay up that late?) to find a box waiting here for me. Now do I have some of the best customers in the world or what? Look what I was sent. This lady has sent me a few shards before, they live in East Yorkshire and her husband pulls these out of the garden apparently.

There are some crackers, again! Some of them are straight out of that Stoke on Trent slipware book, Paul was slightly non plussed to find his desk strewn with bits of brown broken pots, I tried to engage him in my enthusiasm but it appears not to have been hugely well received.

Spring Fling bits

2011-06-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

A quick Spring Fling post, I thought I had more video than I do, sorry about that and now that I put it up there I may already have posted this picture of Dave and Sue trying to warm themselves at my fire, can't just remember.

I tidied one end of the workshop, it was wonderful to have the space this year. It did make it look like I didn't have many pots though but I think they looked much better for having space around them which I have never really been able to do previously.

At the end that you can't see I was throwing and handling and decorating pots when I was able, in between talking to lots of people whilst enthusing wildly about the wonderful-ness of the bubbly pots that were from the wood kiln. I took lots of people down to see the kiln, whether they wanted to or not! What I could do with though if I am able to do Spring Fling again next year is to have someone there to help me. My sister was there one day but then I was trying to show people how I do things for the rest of the weekend and wrapping pots too and it all got a bit complicated and messy.

USA Slipware Tour Volume III

2011-06-04T12:05:00.000-07:00

Who else but a potter could have curtains like this and who else but a potter could have been excited (even when absolutely shattered and struggling to keep a track of conversations that people were trying to have with them and at one point even struggling to sit upright) about the fact that they were sleeping in a room with these curtains?
It's been a while since I had the chance to give you the next installment of the American Adventure 2011. We had the Cape Cod episode here and the Fredericksburg festivities here, just in case you managed to miss them and now to the brief but fun filled 24 hours in Seagrove.
After the tears and fond farewells with Dan at Kevin Crowes' pottery we headed on south with Mr Philbeck on the next leg of the grand tour. We were off to spend the night with another potter who we know from blogging and from organising the Bloggers Show last year, Meredith Heywood and her husband Mark. I've emailed Meredith on many occasions and read her blog and she mine but again this was the first time we were to meet. Meredith had organised a gathering of Seagrove potters the night we got there and we met so many people and were in what was fast becoming the common theme of the trip, fed and watered in style. I am so sorry to those I met that last night if I made even less sense than usual, I was exhausted and fit for nothing but it was a really great welcome.

Seagrove is home to 100+ potters, imagine all that going on in one town, it's unimaginable in this country but what a place. You would be guarenteed to find something to your taste I'm sure. The day that we spent there was in the company of Meredith and we were joined by the one and only Tracey Broome who arrived in whirlwind style (to be honest I would have been disappointed if she had done anything else really). Again we've blog read and commented but never met, and Tracey made a good long trip just to spend the day with the visiting potters that were by this point in case you haven't been paying attention Ron, me, Ang and Doug, tee hee what a treat. After a very restful nights sleep which I badly needed (no chickens and cockerels where we stayed Ron and Doug, just rubbing it in) Meredith had planned a magical mystery tour for the 6 of us around Seagrove.

We started bright and early with David Stuempfle. You know how they say everything in America is huge, well how's that for a kiln? That's just one of the two enormous wood firing kilns that David has, the other I think is just a little larger. He makes some huge pots to go in there but I am just currently drinking some wine out of my lovely tiny David Stuempfle tea bowl and very pleasant it is to use.

David's workshop was really interesting, huge, are you getting the theme here? But very sparse, not in the slightest bit like mine. It has a dirt floor and the wheel is set into the ground there. It's quite a space, I don't think it would suit me in the slightest but it had a wonderful feel to it and smelt incredible.
Inside the kiln.
After that we visited Michael Mahan and his wife Mary's place at From The Ground Up Pottery, somehow I seem not to have any photos from here, I was beginning to feel the heat a bit by this point, the sun was high in the sky and the temperature was heading for too hot for Hannah degrees. Sorry about that you two, great to see your lovely place though.

Next up was Mary Ferrell at Westmoore Pottery. This was a treat too, very much creating work of the traditions that are strong in that area of North Carolina. Beautifully displayed there in their gallery there are many many sgraffito and trailed pots which of course floated my boat.

Quick pit stop back at Meredith's for lunch and a natter and then off again to visit the North Carolina Pottery Centre. Oh what a place to have on your doorstep. A history of pots and potters in the area along with work of contemporary local makers and changing exhibitions of contemporary makers from further afield.

Then Johnston and Gentithes was the next stop. Again not many pictures I'm afraid and none of the people. Crikey I was rubbish that day with the camera, too busy trying to fill my brain with all the goodies I was being shown right left and centre.

I loved the surface on these and the illustrations on the pieces were really magical.

Last stop Bulldog Pottery with Samantha and Bruce, again no pictures apart from the pink flower but I have one of their pots in my kitchen now and we were treated too to a tour of their new house and workshop space. It's a super contemporary incredible building, not at all what you would expect to see in that rural looking area but what a space!

So there we were hot and sticky in the NC spring weather (thank goodness we didn't go in the summer!) and we were loaded back into the car for another drive to our final destination at The Philbeck Residence. Volume IV to come at some point in the future. Don't you worry there are more American tales where these have all come from, I could bore you senseless for years to come! Thanks to Meredith and Tracey for taking the time off to show us a great day and for giving us countless stomach hurting laughing bouts and once again wonderful hospitality and to all the other potters who gave up their time to show us around the spots and share their homes and workshops and love of pots.

Finally after much anticipation - don't be too excited though...

2011-06-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

Well I am still very excited but I completely understand that to most other members of the world population these are nothing but bubbly, nasty skin infection type pots. It was really rather reduced at the end, and there wasn't much I could work out to do about it. I could blame it on my phone a friend of the Fitch variety for having gone to his drama night (honestly! you can't get the quality of slipware woodfiring potter phone a friends these days!) but I don't think I could have changed it much anyway. I had lots of chunky wood and split pallets were my thinnest stuff but even that seemed to be just too much. I put up wanted notices over the weekend for thinner wood and have quite a few places to try now. It used to be easy around here to get the side rippings from the saw mills but almost all of the mills in the region now sell all their offcuts direct to a wood chip fired power plant in Lockerbie. Anyway a few leads to chase up over the next week or so.
This first wee jug is very sweet, looks like a leopard, it was the first thing I took out, I could see him through one of the spy holes.

The two wee mugs are ok too, when I say ok I mean they aren't covered in the blisters. I was so excited after the firing that I couldn't sleep that night till really late but planned a lie in after a couple of very late nights and early starts. So what happened the next morning? PING!! Wide awake bright and early, typical!

Nice plate, shame about the warts.

I had a pale glaze test in there too, it's pretty insipid, I know I wanted paler but this is a bit grim to me. It is nicely melted and smooth on this side of the pot though. Anyway I will test it again with a bit more iron. I wasn't after anything that pale.
I have been talking to people about my wood kiln all weekend and lots of them have been watching it's progress and were interested (though bemused maybe by my excitement) to see the results. I found it frustrating trying to explain that although it wasn't perfect it didn't mean that the whole kiln "didn't work" and needed to be torn down. I struggled to explain it in a couple of sentences and without getting to the point where I was boring people to death. Quite a few said along the lines of well what did I expect, you couldn't ever get it hot enough with wood which threw me the first time I heard it. Needless to say they probably now know more than they ever wanted to know about why I want this kiln and what I want it to do and why I am so thrilled about bubbly pots.
Anyway I am still looking at all the pots sat here at work and it is SO VERY EXCITING!!!! I can't tell you how many times I've picked them up and flapped about (I probably should be more careful and do less flapping whilst holding pots). I want to get on with firing it again. The thing is after a very successful Spring Fling my shelves are looking somewhat barren and Earth and Fire is running up fast. I think I need to concentrate on finishing work for that and wait until after that to have another shot. I'd have loved to have had some wood fired pots for then but I need to be sensible I think and get some decent pots sorted first.

Firing Day Video

2011-05-27T11:28:00.001-07:00

Here's a wee video of the firing day the other day. Hope you enjoy it. The pots are out, I'll post some of them next week once I've got a moment, trying to get my head around Spring Fling which is happening for the next 3 days.

www.spring-fling.co.uk

The post are "interesting"! I made a few silly mistakes like finishing too early when I got my cones confused, I wasn't concentrating properly I don't think. Also I need some skinnier wood for the end I think, it only really reduced towards the end and that caused me some yucky problems.
So watch and in particular note the wonderful door that I have there over the top part of the fire box, the cows that were interested most of the day, the crazy hail storm that went on and on (erm isn't it supposed to be May?) and the blue tit popping in and out of the tiny hole in the green gate post to feed her chicks.

Today I did this...

2011-05-24T15:14:00.001-07:00

To these...

With this...

In here...

For the first time!!!! Big shiney bouncy- ness! I am exhausted. More after I have slept and recovered and digested it.