Been at work this evening.
I've enjoyed throwing loads of mugs in the past few days with this soft clay - it makes for soft looking pots. It's too soft to make anything bellied though, so simple, wobbly cylinders are ideal.
Digging enough clay is no problem and then processing it to a slip, but I don't have the space or facilities to dry much of it out to become usable, plastic clay. The little shed will sort out that problem, it'll take a day to finish it, so I'll wait for a sunny one, then do it. After that, racking, drying trough and away we go, Hollyford clay on tap - well in lumps anyway.
As it turns out, I need lots of small stuff for some forthcoming events, so the limited amount of readily usable clay has forced me to get on with that rather than making even more big jugs that I don't really need at the moment.
I just keep wanting to stick stuff all over my pots - this clay is so smooth to the touch, it can be rolled and modelled much more easily than the old stuff that used to split because of the grit. Hmm, interesting mugs,I think I might be going crazy, but who cares? I'm having a laugh. These have had a white slip and a good blast of copper carbonate right in the face poor chaps.
The stuff in the countryside continues to fire me up, particularly the structure of some of the dead foliage, these teazles are incredible.
The surface of these pumpkins is really interesting. There's a pile of them in the farmer's barn just up the track from the workshop. Gentle texture is something I'm going to explore. I want to use some naked clay in the top of the next firing, in the hot spots, so I'm starting to look around at surfaces for inspiration.
This is remarkable, it's a picture of the ice on the roof of Cookie's car earlier in the week when he gave me a lift to work. There's so much beautiful stuff around, whatever the season and whatever the weather.
Tomorrow I'm off into the city to my friend Johnny's place to drop off more pots to be photographed in his studio. Some of the images are for use in a couple of books that are coming out next year that are being written by two very fine potters, one is by Linda Bloomfield and the other, John Mathieson
Johnny's taken quite a few pictures of pots from the last firing, I'll put some on here next week when I get them.
Other news:
Jessica, a family friend, who came to me earlier in the year on work experience, is going to be training with me a day a week. I'm going to teach her all about the slipware process and materials.
I've been offered an exhibition in January, at the Burton Art Gallery in Bideford, the site of the bottle kiln we fired earlier in the year. There's a very fine collection of North Devon slipware at the Museum, so it's a great venue for my pots which are distant descendants.
Today my acceptance letter came for Earth & Fire at Rufford - phew.
The exhibition of slipware, Good things for the table is still ongoing in the Long Room Gallery, Winchcombe. Thank you to those folk who have kindly bought my pots.
Oh yes, and by the way, my sale's on in the garage this Saturday, from 12 noon until 4pm, many bargains to be had. I'll post more info tomorrow - wow, this publicity machine's white hot.
Bath,bed,bye xx
Those faces are great!
ReplyDeleteHey, Hope the Sale goes well. I like the cups. I dreamed of making something with the Hollyford clay last night. Guess that's a sign.
ReplyDeleteBets of luck with the sales. I love the ice from the roof of the car. We had the most amazing 3D ice in the bed of the pick up truck the other morning. Huge crystals growing up and out of the ice. Had never seen anything like it. Nature is the best artist!
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