Skiver!

I took the afternoon off today to go to a farm sale, of old machinery and farmhouse items, near the barn where we Love Daddies rehearse.



Love Daddies rehearsal room/Cookie's workshop



And hornets that cut short last week's rehearsal - it started with a few, then suddenly loads - so we legged it of course.

Anyway, back to today. It felt rather sad, picking over the affairs of a deceased old farmer in a decaying house, but that's life and death, as the old addage goes, you can't take it with you. The house was fascinating and still had its original 19th century wallpaper. It was packed full of the evidence of a lifestyle from a bygone age, the old guy had been a hoarder. There were old horsedrawn carts in the field, rotted and full of woodworm, rusty ploughs, tractors and in the house, books, iron beds, boxes of cutlery, etc. etc. etc.

There were a few old 19th Century country pots, a salter, which is a huge oval shaped earthenware trough, glazed only internally, with galena. It would have been used for preserving hams in days of old. Also a great scalding pan for making clotted cream, a local speciality. I already own examples of such pots, but nevertheless, I was almost tempted to have a bid. But I have little room to store any more of them, so I left them for somebody else to buy, even though they each sold for just £20, cheap for a bit of history.



So I waited for this lot, in the hope that I may be able to afford it. I couldn't believe it, nobody else even bothered to bid, so I was able to buy this huge crock for just a fiver, hurrah!. Ok, it's broken and tied together with baler twine, but that doesn't worry me, abit of glue would sort it out, but I'll probably just leave the twine on instead. This is just the sort of old country pot that gets saddos like me me excited. In fact, simple country pottery is my favourite type of pottery and this one will live with the other inspirational pieces that I keep in the workshop.

The skills of the guys who made these things, was phenomenal, I guess they did it all day, every day, executed with absolute economy in terms of the use of both time and materials, thrown skillfully with minimal moves and to the optimum thickness, without excess or waste. These wares are the focus of the show, Honest Pots, that I spoke of in yesterday's post, I'll rattle on a lot more about that show as time goes on.

In the picture by the way, is my friend and fellow Love Daddy, Cookie. This picture was taken in his workshop just before we came home this evening. It's his birthday today, although he doesn't know that I know(I haven't been able to mention it all day) and his wife has invited a few of us around for a surprise tea this evening, ha ha! He has a wonderful blog, right here, which he thinks nobody visits, so please take a look at his amazing wood, art and words and leave him a birthday greeting, he'll love it.


Back to the country pots. For those of you who haven't seen this film before, here's the first installment of Isaac Button, Country Potter for you to enjoy - the rest of it is also on Youtube. There's no soundtrack, so don't start to mess with your volume controls. I've heard it said that sadly Isaac passed away before the film makers had a chance to return and record the soundtrack. It is an invaluable historical documentation of a master craftsman at work.




Right, got to scrub up and head for Cookie's, bye for now.