Rufford and stuff

Back again. Since I last blogged, I've been away to Earth and Fire at Rufford. This is my favorite show of the year and this year it was the best that I've had. I think perhaps the pots have improved and I know for sure that the firing was really good. My friend Johnny photographed them before I left and I'll post them on here shortly. A lot of people who spoke, mentioned that they had visited the Honest Pots exhibition in York City Art Gallery. This show still runs until October and is well worth a trip if you are a lover of traditional pottery.



I managed to forget my camera, so I've cheekily pinched these images from my friend Jon's Facebook. My chum 'Frank' came with me. We've been doing a number of collaborative pieces in recent months, his beautiful illustrations on my pots. We took a couple of them with us which created quite a bit of interest and they both sold within the first couple of hours. I'm looking forward to doing more work with him.
We camped with Blogger Margaret
Paul Young
and Hannah, who I hadn't seen since our trip to the States. I think Frank's eyes glazed over on a few occasions as we talked of our adventures across the pond - there are still more tales to share on this blog about that trip and I'll share them in time. Blogger Paul and Marion came by too, It was good to see them. I met many lovely folk over the weekend, thank you to everybody who came to chat and to those who bought my pots.

Since I got home, life has continued to be hectic. On Monday I had a visit from the editor, and photographer of a very classy Japanese lifestyle magazine called Kateigaho, along with Koichiro Isaka, who owns the Gallery St Ives, in Tokyo. Koichiro is writing an article and a book about British potters in which I am to feature. We had a great day in the sunshine, taking photographs in and around the pottery and in the surrounding countryside. I didn't get a chance to take any pictures, but I'll no doubt show the magazine when I get a copy. Koichiro has asked me to provide fifty pieces for an exhibition in Tokyo in January, which is very exciting.

My next show is at Kigbere Manor and is with a group of very distinguished potters with whom I'm proud to be associated. It's an exhibition of teabowls (or drinking cups)and teapots - I'll post some images of my pieces soon, they've come out very nicely thankfully.

This evening I will be taking part in the dress rehearsal for the village play which opens tomorrow - I still don't know my lines - eek!! I play the part of a policeman, so tomorrow the twice annual haircut has to happen, so bye bye crazy curly locks. After this weekend, I get my life back to some kind of normality. It's been too much really, so it'll be good to get back into a sensible pattern. I realize how much I love this blog on the rare occasion that I've had time to update it recently. Facebook is very easy - I can just upload my photos into albums without having to do too much writing, so it's quick, but it isn't the same as blogging. I'm always really happy to hear your comments, but rarely get a chance to reply to them, for which I feel very rude, please forgive me. The last few months have been hardcore, late nights, working every weekend since February, but now America is done, Rufford is done, village play is nearly done, soon I will have my evenings back and blogging will be back if anybody is still out there to read it.

Hello

Hello - here's a voice from the past. I haven't blogged in a month. Life's been crazy. I've been working all hours, trying to catch up from the weeks away from the workshop while I was in the States. Throw in to the mix, rehearsals for the village play twice a week, the recording of a new demo with the Love Daddies, plus all the stuff that goes with family life and it's been hard to find the time and energy to focus on blogging. So there we are, excuses over.
I've made a lot of pots in the past few weeks and fired the kiln last week with Alex and Marky Mark

It was the best firing I've ever had
I'll be having some proper photographs taken this week by my photographer Johnny. I'll post them when I get them back.
These pots are for sale at Earth & Fire at Rufford next weekend.

There's lots more to write about, but I'm only just in from a long day's work, so that's it for now, back soon.