My conversation with Eric

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Vell Mill meadow near Dymock

This is the time of the wild daffodils, and one of the best surviving wild daffodil meadows in the UK is the Vell Mill meadow, where thousands of people used to visit during the spring – traveling up from London on the train to pick the flowers to take back and sell. They’d load them on the train known as the Daffodil Express.

from Bradlow Knoll

It is an easy and unchallenging walk along the Poets Path – a reminder of the area’s connections with Robert Frost, Edward Thomas and others poets, who used to walk “ankle-deep in daffodils”. And it’s not as challenging as climbing up to Bradlow Knoll, which was achieved for your benefit, and despite the treacherous mud, the strange ominous gunshots and creaking joints. As you can see from the photo, it’s still looking wintry.

Interior vase at the Palais des Vaches gallery, Exbury, Nr Southampton

This blog exists primarily to promote Peter Arscott Ceramics, but regular readers are well aware of my tendency to talk with spiders (Ziggy), with pug mills (Thelonious) and with a long-dead Bishop of Trimythous and Patron Saint of potters, Saint Spyridon (known as Spiro), who is in charge of marketing.  So you won’t be surprised about my conversation with Eric, a rat.

Eric

As I looked out of the studio window last week, I caught sight of a tail disappearing behind the compost. Some of you have already been introduced to Eric (see blog of Spring last year), and he has been a constant affront and aggravation since. His life was saved by a poet then, but by now I had had enough. I borrowed a humane rat trap and smeared a biscuit with peanut butter. Next day I had him at last in my power, though he seemed quite self-possessed given the situation.

Yoohoo vase at Palais des Vaches, Exbury, nr Southampton

‘So, what are you going to do? Shoot me? Drown me?”

“No, no drowning. You rats can hold your breath underwater for three minutes – so it would be prolonged and cruel. Did you know there are other species of rat that can swim for over a mile? So those stories about rats popping up in the toilet are not urban myths – you lot will easily make your way up a drainpipe and bite people’s bums for a laugh.”

“Drainpipes are cleaner than swimming in your rivers. You won’t see me anywhere near the River Wye – it’s like doing the breast stroke in treacle. Disgusting.  And I”m a rat!”, he said rather affectedly.

Good time vase at the Palais des Vaches, Exbury, nr Southampton

“Touché. Anyway, I’m taking you over two miles away and releasing you.”

“Oh? May I draw your attention to the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare document whose guiding principles in the humane control of rats and mice cover the welfare of trapped rodents and points out the relevance of the Animal Welfare Act 2006. If you will permit me to quote from the document, (and here he cleared his throat): Release of an animal elsewhere is not necessarily a humane thing to do – translocated animals may fail to adapt to or integrate into new territory and may suffer and die as a result (Mason and Littin, 2003)”.

“What are my alternatives? If I leave you at home, you just breed like…rats. Apparently, just one of your lady rats produces six litters a year consisting of up to 12 ratlets. And you reach sexual maturity after 4-5 weeks, meaning that a population can swell from two rats to around 1,250 in one year, with the potential to grow exponentially. I daren’t think how many of you there are living by the compost.”

“So what difference will getting rid of yours truly make? I’m just one little rat.”

“Yes, but I’ve been after you for a long time. You are the one who flaunts himself in front of the kitchen window, metaphorically cocking a snoop at me, provoking me. And now I’ve got you, thanks to peanut butter.”

Eric’s downfall – crunchy peanut butter on a Hovis biscuit

“Yes, that was delicious, I admit. Will you let me take some when you “release” me? It’ll tide me over until I settle down and get used to eating whatever it is that’s available in the countryside. What do you suggest?”

“ Nuts, berries, wild vegetables, snails, birds’ eggs. It’s a very healthy diet. You have to work hard – it’s not the easy living of feeding off my compost and garbage. And you’ll have to watch out for traffic and cows.”

a cow

“What are cows?”

“Oh dear. You are going to have a hard time, aren’t you. They are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved herbivores. “Vache” is French for cow, you know, and it so happens that I am exhibiting some of my stoneware vases at the Palais des Vaches, a fine gallery in Exbury, near Southampton.”

Here I will stop talking to Eric and tell readers that included in the pieces on show is a new piece which refers to Betty Woodman, one of the great ceramicists whose approach to making pots was always an inspiration to someone who enjoys painting as much as shaping clay. Click here to visit her site.

Betty vase. Palais des Vaches, Exbury, Nr Southampton

To get back to Eric – I did take him 2 miles away in the car and released him in a very inviting meadow with lots of hedgerows and trees. He took with him some peanut butter on a Hovis biscuit, and, as an extra measure and gesture of goodwill, I gave him 50p. I have not seen him since but if any of you see him hitchhiking in the Ledbury area, you are NOT to give him a lift.

River Wye. Photo by Claire Ward

On a less whimsical note, concerned as Eric by the state our main river and its slow poisoning, the whole PAC team has joined the Save the Wye campaign. The Environment Agency says the main excess nutrient that is causing concern is phosphate and that more than 60 per cent of the phosphate in the Wye catchment, which causes harmful “blooms” of algae, comes from poultry and other livestock manure washing into the river during rainfall. This accounts for approximately 72-74% of phosphates entering rivers, turning them into pea soup.

Peggy Sue, pooping polluter

The situation is compounded by discharges from sewage treatment works, which are regulated through Environmental Permits, accounting for approximately 21-23% of phosphates entering rivers. #SaveTheWye is an umbrella campaign to support and build the network of organisations and individuals working to protect and restore the health of the River Wye and its tributaries, for the benefit of both wildlife and people: https://linktr.ee/savethewye

The display at the Palais

Goodbye from Eric

The Spirit with no anus – pottery and anthropology

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Walking up to Bradlow Knoll on a bleak overcast day can be heavy going, and though I like to think I ascended the hill like a young impala, the truth is that it was …  heavy going. Recovering my breath on C.J.’s bench, I decided to continue further into Frith Wood, on your behalf, as there was a possibility that the snowdrops were still in bloom, and I could take some photos for the blog. Alas, I was too late, and too early for anemones and bluebells. It was all a dull greyish brown, with little to attract the eye, so inevitably one’s mind wandered.

 

Every so often, ceramic vases fling themselves headlong to the floor, shattering into many pieces with that splintering sound that is so alarming. Or else they’ll explode in a muffled thud in the kiln during a firing. Or sometimes you’ll hear that gentle click as one vase touches another and a handle you spent half a day getting right weeks ago drops off. It is not an obvious issue related to ceramics, that of the sound clay makes, but a recent pinging heard on opening the kiln prematurely (revealing a long thin hairline fracture on a vase) brought it to mind.

Yours truly ascending Bradlow Knoll. Photo Hein Waschefort

This was reinforced when I met a professor of anthropology at a party recently. He has written a paper regarding the symbolic resonances of clay, pottery-making, and pottery objects amongst Northwest Amazonian peoples that adds to our understanding of how indigenous populations think about, and relate to, the production and use of ceramic objects, especially in the contexts of ritual and cosmology. Yes, these are the sort of parties I go to.

Capuchin monkey. Photo David M. Jensen

He told me about the Colombian Pirá-Paraná region’s version of the story that accounts for the origin of the clay used to make pottery.  As you have no doubt worked out from the blog’s title, it is an earthy and unpretentious story, and squeamish readers may now want to turn away and just look at the pictures. OK?  Here goes. The Spirit with no anus began visiting the children in the house of his neighbour, swearing them to secrecy, entertaining them with his ankle rattles and maracas, and running away when the adults appeared. When the youngest child divulged everything, the Spirit boiled them in a cooking pot, though the youngest one escaped and told his father, who retrieved the children’s bones, which he beat with leaves, thus bringing them back to life as capuchin monkeys. Much later the Spirit came upon the father fishing in a lake. The father let off a loud and sonorous fart, and the Spirit with no anus, of course, wanted to know how he achieved this. The father explained that one needed an anus, and that if he wanted, he’d make the Spirit one by poking a stick up his backside. Which he did, hammering the stick further and further into his body until it came out through his throat and the Spirit fell down dead.

The Spirit’s smooth backside, an upturned Barasana pot (collection of Dr Stephen Hugh-Jones, photo by same)

Now, bear with me. The Spirit is Clay Father. The flesh and other soft parts of his body became the pungent, bluish-grey potting-clay that is extracted from holes in the banks of streams. The Spirit was a creator deity who gave rise to the earth, and his smooth backside is the underside of a cooking pot; the pot’s mouth is his voracious, open maw; and from the pot’s point of view, when the father retrieves his children’s bones, the pot vomits them from his open mouth. Today he appears as a pottery trumpet.

Uriro pottery trumpet, the Spirit with an anus. Collection of Dr Hugh-Jones

From flatulence to flutes, and the ceramic instruments made long ago in South America, clay lends itself to being blown into to produce all sorts of sounds. Just think of the humble ocarina, the Andean clay pipe, the clay whistle and the percussive pot drums, often made in animal or human form, probably for ceremonial functions or as playthings.

Chimu whistling jar. Circa 1470

The “whistling jar” is a 1- or 2-chambered vessel in which a whistle, often concealed by a bird’s head, is sounded by blowing into the spout, or by pouring liquid from one chamber to the other to create a bird-like twittering sound. Smaller whistles in animal shapes, perhaps worn suspended from the neck, frequently have fingerholes that allow variation of pitch. Sometimes, the sound it creates mimics the creature represented.

The poster above is to call your attention to The Chuffed Store Pop-up shop which is appearing at 16 Seymour Place, Marylebone, London, W1H 7NG  until 26th March. You will not see clay trumpets, ocarinas or fat-bottomed pots there, but you will see fine examples of Peter Arscott ceramics, including three-legged bowls and large stoneware platters. Dotted incoherently around this blog are images of said pieces.

Clay ocarina, Paracas, Peru.

If you’d like to try making a clay ocarina yourself,  click here – the first person who succeeds and sends me a video showing it in action will win a three-legged bowl.

 

Going anywhere near Chichester?

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Hello all. Apologies for the brevity of this blog (though some of you might be relieved to be spared the usual ramblings). Oxmarket Contemporary is hosting its first of the Open Winners’ Exhibitions on 14th – 25th February.  The Open offered five categories of submission including the applied arts (craft), drawing and illustration, painting, print and photography and sculpture. This exhibition features the winners from the Drawing and Illustration and Applied Arts Categories. It includes yours truly.

Chris Shaw Hughes won the Drawing and Illustration prize, he creates photo realistic drawings that document pivotal moments of history in specific places.

Jane Eastell one of the joint winners of the Applied Arts prize works with a variety of clay bodies, either hand building or using a potter’s wheel. Jane experiments with different glazes and decoration techniques and produces beautiful work.

Peter Arscott (yes, that’s me) the other joint winner of the Applied Arts prize uses grogged stoneware, which lends itself to modelling and shaping. Peter makes one-off pieces, he sees the pot or vase as a form you can play with.

Oxmarket Contemporary will be open 10.00am – 4.30pm, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. the gallery is in St. Andrew’s Court, off East Street, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 1YH.

The Madding Crowds

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Photo by Rob Curran on Unsplash

Peter Arscott Ceramics paid a quick visit to London a few weeks ago, in order to go to some exhibitions. Walking from gallery to gallery was as demanding as climbing Bradlow Hill, not because of any steep incline but because of the number of people out and about in the capital. – wall-to-wall human flesh, where even on the pavements one had to stop and queue simply to keep going along the same trajectory.

“Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.” Thomas Gray. The view from Bradlow Knoll on Boxing Day

A walk along the South Bank to Borough Market for a bit of street food was a marathon, and once in the market area, the queues in front of each little kiosk (the paella queue being the longest) snaked and coiled around each other and made progress almost impossible. This is not a complaint, by the way, simply an observation – everybody was very relaxed and easy-going, and the atmosphere in the city was memorably positive and friendly.

The first exhibition was Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art at the Hayward Gallery (until 8th January, so hurry), featuring artists working across recent decades, and examining the plasticity and the possibilities of ceramics, often in a defamiliarized way. Weird and wonderful, ranging from small abstract works to large-scale installations that make you wonder how the artists managed to accomplish their work. If you ever wonder what clay can do, this is for you.

Architeuthis by Zinc Yi

David Zink Yi (Lima, Peru) has somehow created a giant squid (5 metres) lying in a pool of its own ink. To achieve the slick-looking flesh he has glazed the piece with a mix of different oxides. An animal we only ever encounter dead on our shores, there is something impressive but sad about this Architeuthis on the gallery floor. Insider info: the “ink” was made by mixing maple syrup with black ink, and acts as a barrier – somebody kicked and broke one of its legs at a previous exhibition, and this is the clever solution.

Brie Ruais

Brie Ruais (USA) draws inspiration for her large wall pieces from the desert landscapes of the Southwest of the United States. She sees similarities between the body and the land since they both bear scars as a record of trauma, the latter as a result of human intervention and extraction in the region.

Betty Woodman

Betty Woodman’s wall piece (USA, d. 2018) made of many separate ingredients that come together to create movement, colour, and space, is typical of her. Many years ago, she started to create an untroubled and friendly world for ceramics that had never previously existed, and her pieces were often set out in the lobby of galleries with flowers in them, offering visitors a warm welcome. She would throw her pieces on the wheel, but played with them afterwards, twisting, stretching, and cutting shapes, I think, without much forward planning, which gives her work such freshness.

Woody de Othello

Woody de Othello makes vases and jugs that incorporate human body parts such as arms, hands, lips and feet. The exaggerated proportions and the vivid hues of his sculptures reflect his Haitian ancestry and Yoruba culture. They are quite funny too.

Grayson Perry

Of course, Grayson Perry (now a “Sir”) is there with his beautifully made vases – he is a coiler par excellence – and so are many more artists proving the flexibility of clay as an art material.

A walk to the Tate Modern followed, and a visit to the Cezanne exhibition (fabulous collection of his work on show), and also Maria Bartuszová work which is based on plaster casting using gravitational pull or her own breath to make serenely white and delicate works.

Twins (1909) by Marianne Werefkin

Then off to the Royal Academy for a look at “Making Modernism” (on until 12 February) which brings together the work of seven German women artists active in the early twentieth century.

Mother cradling dead child (charcoal) by Käthe Kolwitz

Kathe Kollwitz is the best known, but the others, who achieved success in their day, are, until now, largely forgotten thanks to the Kinder, Küche, Kirche philosophy coming back to the fore.

Portrait of a boy (Willi Blab) by Gabriele Münter

Peter Arscott Ceramics will be included in an exhibition of Oxmarket Open winners in Chichester from 14th to 26th of February. If you pay it a visit, the town has plenty to offer – click here for a previous blog about it.

As you have undoubtedly picked up, 14th February is St Valentine’s, patron saint of beekeepers, asthmatics, and lovers, though St Spyridon (Patron saint of potters and in charge of Marketing at PAC) claims he is a fabrication, “like St Philomena, and St Veronica, and St Eustice”, he says dismissively.

And thanks to those of you who got in touch with your reactions to my story in Litro magazine in the last blog. It’s good to hear your thoughts, mostly positive and some constructively critical, and I appreciate them all. Here is another one called Cornelius Radhopper, which is published in Azure, a Journal of Literary Thought. It specializes in other-worldly realism, a genre that represents the known, often mundane, world in an elevated or defamiliarising way. To read it, click here.

Kiln Kat Kalamity

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It may have been a cold early December afternoon, but a walk was needed up to CJ’s bench on Bradlow Hill, in part to clear the cobwebs, but mainly to meditate on the day’s disruptions and to put things in perspective. Kiln firings do sometimes go wrong – it’s not the end of the world. After a blissful state of Nirvana was attained, earthly feelings like suffering and desire disappeared, and the walk downhill was easy.

the remains of the clay

The main reason that pottery explodes in the kiln is residual moisture left in the clay body. Even when it appears bone dry.  Once the kiln gets really hot, the moisture starts to turn into steam, and the steam expands very rapidly into any small air pockets in the clay and shatters the pottery. Kerblam! Though actually it’s usually no more than a loud pop.

exploding pussy

This explosion was only discovered after a previous incident had taken place in the studio. This was announced by the layer of blue smoke that hung in space on entering the room, and which could be seen coiling up from the control panel behind the kiln. There was no panic, though Ziggy and Spiro were nowhere to be seen, and Thelonious offered little, if any, help.

Corroded terminals

Once everything had been turned off and the panel cover removed, the reasons were obvious: of the twelve terminals that connect up to the ends of the heating coils, three were sloppily connected and had corroded badly, deciding that they’d had quite enough, and the time had come to surrender.

Bottomless cat

Opening the kiln top then revealed that a ceramic cat had allowed its bottom to explode. This was just coincidence and had nothing to do with the terminals, though disappointing to my daughter-in-law, who made it. The original, successful, ceramic cat is modelled on Otto – here is a picture of Otto with his ceramic doppelganger Potto. They both live in London.

Ottio and Potto

 Otto himself has visited Ledbury and the studio and spent a weekend with the two adult humans for whom he is responsible. No rats were caught, he is too sedate for that, but the arrival of a third baby human may have complicated his ordered life, since for years cats have been unwittingly exploiting humans into taking care of them, by replicating the sound of a baby’s cry when they meow. They only meow when humans are around, the crafty creatures.

Moche pampas cat, 7 – 11th century AD

And cats have a long pedigree when it comes to ceramics. This beautiful stirrup-spout ceramic vessel was made by potters of Peru’s Moche culture sometime between the 4th – 7thcentury A.D. Moche artists were great observers of the natural world and depicted animals with a keen attention to detail. Here, the ceramicist captured the distinctive coat and leg markings, as well as the bushy tail, of the pampas cat. If you are in New York, you can see it at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Potto

Early Egyptians from wealthy families loved their mogs and dressed them in jewels and fed them treats. When the cats died, they were mummified. As a sign of mourning, the cat owners shaved off their eyebrows, and continued to mourn until their eyebrows grew back. Cats were so special that those who killed them, even by accident, were sentenced to death.

Porcello scaber

A piece that does not mention cats however, though woodlice make an appearance, is a story by yours truly in Litro Magazine. This is an online publication that (as it says on the website) “sits at the intersection of technology, the creative arts & literature. It provides a forum for new & experimental writing, whilst nurturing literary development”. It publishes work by first time authors through to Nobel laureates, providing readers with a perfect read for those with busy lives. So, it’s perfect for all of you, and if you want to read the online short story, then please just click here. It’s called Carpet Vandal.

Large stoneware platter 38 cms diam – The Chuffed Store

Christmas is upon us, and we are all having to think of gifts. We’re here to help and to encourage you to buy the “one-off’, that singular piece, the handmade and irrepeatable – in other words, a stoneware vase or dish that catches the eye while at the same time being practical. Such as this large serving platter which you can order through The Chuffed Store.

Or else drop in on one of the galleries that you can find on our website – just click here.

To finish off, why not treat yourself to a full-throated Tom Jones cat song?  The lyrics may not be much, but it’s a belter. Click here for some 70s nostalgia. Why do the girls in the audience scream when he sings that he likes “your pussycat nose”?

Spiro, Thelonious and Ziggy wish you a Happy Christmas

From everyone at Peter Arscott Ceramics, specially from Spiro, Thelonious and Ziggy, have a Happy Christmas and a better new year than we are all expecting.

November fauna – where have all the bunnies gone?

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Dull morning on Bradlow Knoll

There is admittedly no obvious connection between jellyfish, numbats and ceramics, but walking up Bradlow Hill on a mild and misty morning, with no sightings of any fauna, not even sheep, any imagination can get carried away and a yearning for the exotic can take over when the landscape starts turning into a monochrome dun colour. The only thing that caught my eye was a large parasol mushroom.

Parasol

Talking to the local butcher about rabbit (there was one for sale on display) it was a surprise to find out that there are no longer the numbers that existed only ten years ago. Travelling by train used to guarantee fields and meadows with bunnies running along the hedgerows. The main reason for this change is Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease 2, or RHD 2, a disease with a mortality rate of over 90% which has all but wiped out wild rabbit populations across Europe.

Red and black vase at Cecilia Colman Gallery

Scientists, researchers and conservationists from across the UK have announced in the latest State of Nature report that the nation’s wildlife is continuing to decline despite efforts to reverse these trends. In fact, since the 1970s, it has been shown that 41% of all UK species studied have declined. This, plus the impending recession that will soon be upon us, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the sports-washing about to take place in Qatar, is all very depressing – so anything is welcome that takes one’s mind off the issues.

Nevertheless, a cute little numbat was not expected to suddenly pop out from behind a hedge in Frith Wood, but nevertheless, a rabbit or two surely could have made an appearance. Why all this stuff about numbats, you ask?

Well, celebrations and events in November are numerous, but one in particular I know you will be upset you’ve missed is not the Day of the Dead, or Guy Fawkes Night (5th Nov), or even the FIFA World Cup, but November 6th, which is World Numbat Day. It is an insectivorous marsupial which only eats termites. This furry little Australian is an endangered species. The first ever drawing of a Numbat is by George Fletcher Moore who drew it in his diary on 22 September 1831, after seeing one of the animals for the first time during an expedition.

And World Jellyfish Day (3rd November)! Yes, a day to appreciate and celebrate jellyfish, which are not, in fact, fish or made of jelly. They have no heart or brain (yes, yes, I am sure we can all think of someone who fits the description), but nevertheless, do quite well stunning their prey with their stinging tentacles and gobbling them up. Some are quite beautiful, so here’s a link to a video of jellyfish that will help you relax.

Where would anyone go to see such exotic animals? Luckily, if you live in London, you can visit Regent’s Zoo and spend time admiring your fellow creatures there. Warthogs, pigmy hippos, okapis, lemurs, hummingbirds, butterflies, and once you’re satiated with wonder, what to do?

Autumn vase at Cecilia Colman Gallery

Why, only a stone’s throw from the zoo is the Cecilia Colman Gallery where you can continue your immersion in the sublime and extraordinary by gazing at the handmade pieces on offer, including vases by Peter Arscott Ceramics.

Green Red vase at Cecilia Colman Gallery

The gallery, which was opened in 1977 in what was then a sleepy High Street in St. Johns Wood, is today part of a bustling cosmopolitan centre, and one of the few places still remaining from the 1970s.

Matisse vase at Cecilia Colman Gallery

One of the pieces is a Matisse vase. Totally inspired by Matisse’s painting, Red Interior, with bold red and green colours applied with confident brushstrokes depicting an interior with glimpses of a garden outside. A stoneware vase, like all of them, slab-rolled and glaze-fired at a temperature of 1275°. Click here if you want a glimpse of the painting – copyright rightly prevents its inclusion in this blog.

Wavy vase at Cecilia Colman Gallery – tomatoes not included.

Spiro (Head of Marketing) says: “You may think that doing any Christmas shopping in November is too early, but it does help retailers and it means less stress as the pre-Christmas frenzy builds up into its seasonal crescendo in December. Furthermore, a visit to the gallery allows you the opportunity to buy that handmade one-off gift for that special person – namely you”.

Since this is an animal-heavy blog, it’s worth knowing that Matisse was an animal lover, and that he was devoted to his three feline companions named Cousi, Minouche, and La Puce. He is even said to have fed his cats brioche bread every morning. Matisse, also a lover of birds, had pet doves, which he purchased from vendors along the Seine.

Au revoir.

 

Mythical Kings and Iguanas

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Looking down towards Ledbury and the countryside beyond, on a bright Autumn morning when nobody is about, and the serene landscape looks like it would rather just stay in bed and wait for next Spring, it is hard to believe anything momentous has ever taken place in such a pastoral setting, until you picture Caratacus fighting the Romans at British Camp in the first century AD, or the Battle of Ledbury in 1645, or you acknowledge the influential legacy of the Dymock poets and John Masefield, or the music of Elgar, or you remember the bold but unsuccessful experiment of the Chartist settlement of 1848. All this in such a small patch of land.

Slanting light

I know this is a ceramics blog, dear Reader, but Man’s capacity to do good and bad is in the news, the latter tendency reinforced in your mind as you enter Frith wood and imagine Nature fierce in tooth and claw: ferrets killing fledglings, foxes eating rabbits, badgers snacking on frogs. On the other hand, bees and ants are pretty good at organising societies and generally minding their own. Just like the Chartists.

A Chartist riot. Engraving by Alfred Pearse

However, unlike ants, bees and other insects, the Chartists focused on the six points of the People’s Charter, which aimed to introduce universal male franchise (at a time when perhaps only one-fifth of adult males had the vote – essentially those drawn from the upper and middle classes) and a more equitable and democratic political system.

The River Severn at Newtown

 

Yes, the Chartists provide us with the ceramic link for this blog, because not only did they experiment with their settlement near Ledbury, but rose in protest at Newtown, Wales, in 1839, which is where Peter Arscott Ceramics can be seen at the Oriel Davis Gallery.

Robert Owen memorial at Newtown

Newtown is the birthplace of a remarkable man. Robert Owen was a self-made man, reformer, philanthropist, community builder who spent his life seeking to improve the lives of the working class. He improved working conditions for factory workers, which he demonstrated at New Lanark, Scotland, became a leader in trade unionism, promoted social equality through his experimental Utopian communities, and supported the passage of child labour laws and free education for children, as well as advocating for an eight-hour day. His principles became the basis for Britain’s Co-operative shops, some of which continue trading in altered forms to this day. There is a museum dedicated to his life in the town.

Karl Mark, photo by John Mayall

Owen was a “Utopian Socialist”, as Marx and Engels called him. They argued that his plan, to create a model socialist utopia, was insufficient to create a new society. In their view, it was utopian because the overthrow of the capitalist system could only occur once the working class was organized into a revolutionary socialist political party that was completely independent of all capitalist class influence. Anyway, I’ve always wanted to insert Marx’s image into this blog, so here goes.

Ochre puzzle vase at Oriel Davis

Spiro (in charge of Marketing and Communications) says “too much history! Enough!”, so back to Frith Wood, albeit briefly. There was a golden light slanting in through the trees and the fallen leaves provided a carpet of gold, green, purple and ochre colours to walk on. Other than that, there was no flora to see except the occasional scattering of Hypholoma fasciculare, commonly known as the sulphur tuft or clustered wood lover, a common woodland mushroom, often in evidence when hardly any other mushrooms are to be found.

The dreaded sulphur tuft

The sulphur tuft grows prolifically in large clumps on stumps, dead roots or rotting trunks of broadleaved trees. It looks inviting enough, but is treacherous, bitter and poisonous, and consuming it can cause vomiting, diarrhoea and convulsions. In contrast, a lovely feeling of serenity, peace and general satisfaction will envelop you when you visit the Oriel Davies Gallery. It is a key public art gallery of Wales, presenting world-class, thought-provoking and challenging art by national and international artists in an environment that is welcoming (and free). Its shop sells Peter Arscott ceramics, and it has a good café too.

Big spot vase at Oriel Davis

On arrival to deliver the ceramics, there was a busker singing in the town centre. Unusually, because it’s nearly always Bob Dylan, the Beatles or Leonard Cohen, this lady was singing Dory Previn’s Mythical Kings and Iguanas, a song that might take your mind back if you are of a certain age. As far as I know, Dory has no connections to Newtown (she was born in New Jersey) but listen to her on the Old Grey Whistle Test by clicking here.

Wobble grid vase at Oriel Davis.

Spiro says that not one of the team at Peter Arscott Ceramics has ever flown to star-stained heights on bend and battered wings, like Dory. But Spiro, being a third century Bishop of Trimythous, is somewhat literal in his interpretations and there is no way he understands metaphor or allegory, though ironically, Thelonious, perhaps because he is a heavy cast iron and earth-bound pugmill, understands fully. He has the heart of a poet.

Small garden vase at Oriel Davis

September meander

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Exbury Gardens

There is a hint of autumn in the air, but only a hint. Looking down on Ledbury from Bradlow Knoll, the view still offers the usual subtle variation of greens with only a tinge of autumnal orange, though large spiders have started to move into the house and studio, always an indication of colder days ahead, and much to the annoyance of Ziggy, whose insecurities make him prey to anxiety and aggression at the sight of anything he sees as competition in his role as the studio’s “Flycatcher-in-chief”.

Autumn leaf zephyr vase @ Palais des Vaches

Flies are also on the move come autumn. They choose to fly high before the weather gets too cold and enter attics and lofts for the winter. No matter how well the space is sealed, they somehow manage to get in, so that when you visit the loft in spring the whole place is buzzing with blowflies trying to find a way out, presumably having bred throughout Winter. So, all power to the spider, and to anything else that eats them, like fish. Yes, fish, specially trout, are partial to fly, as is the chub – all this came to mind after a walk along the River Leadon.

River Leadon – Chub don’t mind mud

The sad state of the river was highlighted in a blog last September (click here), so it merited another visit. It is good to report an obvious improvement, not least because fish are back, including chub, which can sometimes be seen swimming near the surface of rivers and streams, often in large shoals. One was caught, and then returned – a good indication of better water quality, though there are two outlets pouring into the river that seem to contain some oily substance.  As they grow, chub become aggressive predators, eating fish, frogs and even small mammals. Hard to believe when you look at the little chap in the photo.

the predatory chub

He or she must be one of the 90,000 roach, chub, and dace fish that have been added to replace those killed by pollution in 2016, when 100 tonnes of digestate were pumped onto a field and flowed into the Preston Brook, which in turn flows into the river Leadon, and more than 15,200 fish were killed in what was described as “one of the worst watercourse pollution incidents in Herefordshire in recent memory”. The new fish were all hatched and reared at the Environment Agency’s national fish farm at Calverton in Nottinghamshire, which is funded by the proceeds of fishing rod licence sales.

Autumn swirl charger @ Palais des Vaches

There are almost 1500 river systems, comprising over 200,000 km of watercourses in the UK but, in a global context, our rivers are mere streams – being characteristically short, shallow and subject to considerable man-made disturbance, as we know from recent news about water companies releasing sewage and other waste whenever the system is deluged after rainfall (Rain? In the UK? Get away and stap me vitals!).

Autumn vase @ Palais des Vaches

One of these rivers is the Beaulieu River in the New Forest, which rises near Lyndhurst and flows into the Solent, passing through the beautiful gardens at Exbury. More than 100 years in the making, these gardens, designed and curated by the Rothschild family, have a spectacular collection of landscaped woodland, herbaceous, contemporary, formal and wildflower gardens.

Autumn Reds vase

Now, dear reader, as you probably know, a “meander” is a small winding river or stream, and, as a verb, can be used to describe a winding or intricate course suggestive of aimless wandering. Which is what I have done in order to get to this point. The Exbury estate, through which the river passes, also has the Palais des Vaches gallery, a former milking shed now transformed into a strikingly handsome gallery and show area. No thumb-twiddlers, the Rothschilds planned and rebuilt it during the Covid lockdown, and it now has had a further extension added.

interior of the Palais

Autumn Glory is the title of the show opening on Saturday 24th September, and Peter Arscott Ceramics is exhibiting there along with painters, sculptors and textile artists.

Peter Arscott ceramics on show

Possibly as a result of the long hot summer we have had, the apple harvest is early this year in Herefordshire. This means friends and neighbours will be desperately going round offering large bags to anybody they meet, in the hope that this will help with the glut. Other than freezing them, drying them, turning them into puree, or using them to throw at squirrels, any interesting and creative ideas that deal with large supplies of apples will be welcome.  Even leaving them on the garden wall for commuters to take before getting to the station makes few inroads.

In keeping with the tenor of this blog, here is a verse from Rupert Brooke’s “Heaven”:

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat’ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?….

You can read the rest by clicking here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ledbury’s surreal connections

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Ledbury down below

There is a lot of doc leaf in the fields and meadows at this time of year – they turn a dark ox blood red as their seeds appear and are easily identified as they stand out in the green landscape. This is very noticeable walking up the hill to Bradlow Knoll. The reason they command the eye’s attention is that we humans find red on green, or green on red, a very strong and vigorous combination – both colours are opposites on the colour chart, as blue is to orange, or yellow to violet, though these do not have the same force.

Doc

Interestingly, blue, red, and yellow are primary colours, whereas green is not (being made of yellow and blue) but has the personality of a primary colour. Anyway, try putting a piece of pure green paper next to a central red (one that pulls nether to yellow or to blue) and you might see the edge where they meet seemingly vibrate.

This is what goes through one’s head when walking up a hill towards a wood, this and “did I switch the kiln on?”, and “how do birds pee?”, and “which would be the nicest if animals could talk?” Once on top of the hill, the view below, with Ledbury’s steeple in the mid-distance, turns one’s attention in another direction.

Red and Green vase at Take 4 Gallery

Ledbury has become a popular destination for visitors recently, or it could be that they are all “passing through” on their way to Wales. Nevertheless, seeing the place where you live through the eyes of a stranger is good – what you usually accept as commonplace is often special when looked at objectively. For example, it really is extraordinary that so small a place has such links with poets such as Masefield, Barrett Browning, Auden, Frost and Thomas, or that  Butchers Row museum once stood in the middle of the High Street with seven others buildings and saw the slaughter of animals on a regular basis, the blood and effluvia mingling with the stream that ran down Church Lane leading to outbreaks of typhoid – until the buildings were bought out by public subscription and knocked down.

Zephyr vase at Take 4 Gallery, Ledbury

Though Ledbury is no stranger than any other place, it does exhibit a Tibetan flute or pipe fashioned from the thigh bone of a human, it did have church sextons who carried long sticks to wake up those who were nodding off with a tap on the head, and it did have pavements made of large cobbles or “petrified kidneys” that were big enough to send clog-wearing Ledburians flying.

Objective chance. Conroy Maddox

So, Ledbury has its “surreal” moments, but few places can boast of being the birthplace of a true surrealist painter like Conroy Maddox. He was born in 1912, upstairs  in what is now the Herefordshire Wildlife Trust shop, next door to the Poetry House on the corner of Bye Street. A painter, collagist, writer and lecturer; he discovered surrealism in 1935, spending the rest of his life exploring its potential through his paintings, photographs, objects and texts. He rejected academic painting in favour of techniques that expressed the surrealistic spirit of rebellion.

The Dressing of the Crabs. Conroy Maddox poster for the first Ledbury Poetry Festival 1997

His creations soon began not only to challenge the conventional view of reality, but also to push pictorial expression to the limits of consciousness. He was even implicated in both scandal and controversy when, during the Second World War, Scotland Yard suspected him of fifth columnist sabotage and mounted a surprise raid to seize works thought to contain coded messages to the enemy.

Party guest

Weekend parties at Maddox’s house drew in a wide variety of unconventional attendees, and guardian journalist Tim Hilton recalled in his obituary of the artist: “Festivities were common in Maddox’s surrealist villa. I attended carousals there with other undisciplined children, women in Gypsy dress, poets, communist intellectuals from the University of Birmingham, and early postwar Caribbean immigrants … The Balsall Heath house also contained dozens of unsold paintings and many photographs of Maddox in the company of a nun. Some of their activities involved a crucifixion, the naked but bespectacled Maddox its victim, while the nun drank from a two-pint bottle of the local brew, Mitchell’s and Butler’s.”

Fountain by Marcel Duchamp

The obvious link between ceramics and surrealism is Marcel Duchamp’s inverted porcelain urinal signed “R.Mutt” and titled “Fountain.” Sadly, this will not be on show during Herefordshire Art Week, a nine-day art trail open to all (3 – 11 September).  Artists, craft makers and creative businesses open their private studios every day from 11am – 5pm.

Matisse vase at Take 4 Gallery, Ledbury. hArt

The Take Four Gallery on the High Street will be exhibiting some pieces by Peter Arscott Ceramics, and there will be demonstrations at 11 and at 2 on Thursday 8th September on how to make a three-legged urinal, er..sorry…bowl.

Three legged bowl at Take 4 Gallery

h.Art has become part of Herefordshire’s cultural calendar, with a huge variety of art and art forms on show in open studios, group exhibitions and gallery events. The vast majority offer free admission to visitors, in locations such as manor houses, historic barns, farms, churches and beautiful gardens.

Back in the cool of Frith Wood, with no other walkers on a very early Monday morning, the eery silence was only occasionally broken by birdsong, and at one point a sudden crashing through the undergrowth revealed the light brown back of a fleeing deer. If Surrealism was an avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images, then this was a good setting – substitute pike for deer.

From predatory pike to printed prose: let me introduce you to the Stand Magazine and to Jon Silkin, poet, editor and critic who established it with his £5 redundancy money (received after trying to organise some of his fellow manual workers) as a ‘stand’ against injustice and oppression, and to ‘stand’ for the role that the arts, poetry and fiction in particular, could and should play in that fight.

Silkin

As described by the poet Rodney Pybus, Stand is “….. a place where the unglamorous, the unfashionable, the oppositional, the innovative, the unEnglish, the radical voices might gain a hearing as well as the more conventional, acceptable and consensual voices.”

My short story, Maxwell’s Nose, probably belongs to the “conventional, acceptable and consensual” stable.  If you’d like to read it you can click here for the website, and you can read the intro, though you would have to buy an individual copy (£7 inc postage) through the editor at engstand@leeds.ac.uk to read the whole story, or else subscribe online. Excellent poetry contributions.

Goodbye

Hereford, Hawkins and Hoople

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Hereford Cathedral

“And Prince Eadric and the Welsh became hostile and they attacked the castle-men in Hereford, and did them many injuries. And here the king set a great tax on the wretched people …” (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Worcester Manuscript 1066, pp. 200-201)

Illustration of a Welsh archer from the late 13th century

It seems that, right up to the Middle Ages, there were quite a few battles waged by the Welsh against the English in Hereford, which probably gave rise to many myths, and perhaps the most famous of these are the supposed laws about your rights to shoot a Welsh person with a longbow on a Sunday in the Cathedral Close in Hereford. A spokesperson for the Law Commission has confirmed: “It is illegal to shoot a Welsh or Scottish person regardless of the day, location or choice of weaponry.”

Church Street, Hereford

So, denied this right by law, I left my bow and arrow behind and drove into the city to deliver ceramics to the Timothy Hawkins Gallery – just a stone’s throw from the Cathedral, but it was a weekday anyway, not a Sunday. Church Street, where the gallery is, is a stone-paved lane that leads from the close to the main square, free of traffic, and with cafes, it is much used by pedestrians as a short-cut.

Timothy Hawkins himself is an artist craftsman who makes beautiful bespoke furniture, and the gallery is an outlet for some of his work, but also for others. Glass, textiles, metal work, ceramics, as well as wood, is on display, and after you’ve paid a visit, you can go and visit the Chained Library and the Mappa Mundi at the Cathedral before going to one of the fine pubs for a drink.

Signs and Wonders by Edmund de Waal. Photo by Hélène Binet

The main square itself is used as a market once a week, and I was reminded that many years ago a young Edmund de Waal used to sell his ceramics there when he set up a studio in the eighties. His work is minimalist and functional, but also sensual because, as he says, “of the knowledge our own hands hold when we make things”. Touch is important to him, as it was to another potter, born in Hereford, Simon Carroll.

Simon Carroll. Photo from Artforum 2014

Quite a contrast with de Waal’s work, Carroll’s is exuberant and risk-taking, and he was a whizz with glazes.

Hello vase at the Timothy Hawkins Gallery

Who else has Hereford connections? Well, three incredibly famous actors: David Garrick, Sarah Siddons and Nell Gwynn, Charles II’s mistress. And singer songwriter Ellie Goulding. And, of course, Mott the Hoople, glam rock band whose greatest hit was All the Young Dudes, written for them by David Bowie to stop them splitting up, which they were on the verge of doing – you of a certain age will enjoy listening to it again: click here.

Vase 54 at the Timothy Hawkins Gallery

And if any of you enjoy your sport, you may remember one if the greatest footballing upsets in FA Cup history when Hereford United beat Newcastle 2–1 in January 1972, when they were still a non-league side and Newcastle were in the top division of English football. Have a look at Ronnie Radford’s goal here.

JV11 at Timothy Hawkins Gallery

Historically, Hereford was once part of Wales (thus all those battles) and there is still a debate that crops up now and again as to whether the county would be better off as part of Wales and not England, to the extent that some believe that Herefordshire has become mecca for people from the South East and London to build their castles in their very own corner of ‘England’, to the detriment of Hereford’s “Welshness”, defined as infectious high spirits, combined with recklessness, generosity, and a ready wit (all of which Nell Gwynn had in spades).

the longest place name in Europe

Two English tourists are driving through Wales and visit the place with the longest name in Europe  –Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (“St Mary’s Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel near a Rapid Whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the Red Cave”). They stop for lunch and one of the tourists asks the waitress: “Before we order, I wonder if you could settle an argument for us. Can you pronounce where we are, very, very, very slowly?”The girl leaned over and said: “Burrr… gurrr… King.”

Nell Gwynn as Cupid, an engraving by Richard Thomson, of a painting by Peter Cross.Samuel Pepys kept one on his desk.

Large figure vase at the Timothy Hawkins Gallery