Posts

Arscott’s ceramic wanderings

/in , /by

cloud vase petulant

I found myself wandering about in the grounds of a ruined castle, somewhere near the Welsh border, probably Skenfrith, or White Castle, when I came upon an open enclosure, the portcullis and dry moat lay ahead and the grassy area was walled in and contained a massive oak tree. But what most intrigued me a very large vase that stood in the middle – it was familiar to me, in fact one of my own pieces called Cloud Vase, but it was huge.

“What are you doing here?” I asked it, I don’t know why.

“I could ask you the same thing”, it answered rather petulantly.

“But what has happened?”  I was very confused.

“Nothing much. What’s up with you?”

“Nothing. What do you mean?”

“Well, look at yourself. You’re stark naked.”

I looked down and saw this was the case. Which is when, thankfully, I woke up.

vine vase in the Welsh hills

This is how reality, or the day to day, elbows its way into your sleep and there’s always some reason behind it. In this case I blame Mr Dale Chihuly. Let me explain.

dream vase at Cecilia Colman’s

On the way back from leaving some ceramics with the Cecilia Colman Gallery in St John’s Wood (see June 2018 blog), a friend suggested we visit Kew Gardens and look at the exhibition of glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly, Emperor of Blown Glass, whose work he often sites in natural settings, landscape or gardens, and whose technique, as he says himself ( he doesn’t like to use a lot of tools), it is all about fire, gravity and centrifugal force: “It’s these natural elements that make the pieces begin to look like they were made by nature”.

Chehuly’s Persian Column in the Temperate House at Kew

This outdoor exhibition brings together work from the past 50 years, the only site-specific piece being the Persian Column suspended from the roof of the Temperate House.

Lime Chrystal Tower

Main ingredients of glass?  Liquid sand, or rather sand, soda and limestone. melted at around 1320 degrees Celsius. This makes a typical glass which can be formed by blowing by mouth or machine, by casting, by pressing and by drawing.

Glass Hornets in the pond at the Temperate House viewed from the gallery

So, it’s a cousin of stoneware, which is also fired at a high temperature and is essentially a vitreous ceramic made from naturally occurring stoneware clay containing kaolinite, mica and quartz, and is thus water resistant and frost proof – like the pieces I make, only mine are really for a domestic setting, though what if….?

Sapphire Star

How big could a ceramic sculpture be, I wondered? The glass work on view is large, and mainly made out of many hand blown pieces which are carefully slipped onto steel rods that stand out from an inner steel core or tube planted deep into the ground. Like the Summer Sun by the lake, or the Sapphire Star by the Victoria Gate entrance. They are very large and dominating, and impressive. Which is why I ended up dreaming about man made ceramics in outdoor settings.

Summer Sun

If you haven’t been to Kew, you have a treat awaiting. It is a garden that houses the largest and most diverse botanical collections in the world (30,000 different kinds of plants), a World Heritage Centre, 132 hectares of gardens, glasshouses, listed buildings and the fabulous Palm House built in 1848. Parking is challenging unless you go early, otherwise it is best to arrive on the underground, either Kew Station or Richmond. The sandwiches are good.

small vine vase at Cecilia Colman’s

So, back to nocturnal wanderings of the mind, finding yourself in a state of undress in a dream is no big thing, nothing to worry about. Everybody has had one of these dreams, or at least that’s what the giant vase on the hill tells me.

giant vase that tells me things

12 hours in London (is like a year in any other place)

/in , /by

derelict Victorian Public Toilets into a cracking little pub.

A quick overnight trip to London was called for, ceramics to be delivered in the morning to the Cecilia Colman Gallery, so arrival was late in the evening – the idea being to spend the night and get up early.

closing time at Pueblito Paisa

London is an extraordinary place, which is why I found myself late that night somewhere in Haringey eating aborrajado (deep-fried stuffed plantains) and empanaditas (meat turnovers) all washed down with cold Colombian beer. The city is ever shifting, neighbourhoods seem to change overnight from the down-at-heel to the slickly bourgeois, and this perpetual construction of flats for the professionals, the foreign “land bankers” and who knows who else seems to be hitting Seven Sisters, so that the little restaurant we were eating at is now in danger, along with its neighbouring businesses, of making way for another redevelopment scheme.

ceviche

Within this large building more than 100 Latin American traders have created a busy complex of cafes, butchers, travel agencies, restaurants, clothes shops and greengrocers all under one roof, and is a fine example of a city that can boast to being the most multicultural place in the planet.

Relocation is promised, but everyone knows that it would never provide the genuine atmosphere that exists when people unselfconsciously transform a place through the need to make a living and make use of their own experiences and backgrounds. It is called Pueblito Paisa, and long may it thrive. Pay it a visit and try the ceviche.

passers-by outside the High Cross pub

We then walked a couple of blocks to a solid Victorian public toilet. This very hospitable place turned out to be a pub, recently converted, and we sat down outside under a cherry tree to drink and watch the night traffic flow by, mostly double deckers and taxis, and pedestrians of all shapes, sizes and diversity, track suits, hijab, business suits, shorts, sauntered past us.

At one point we looked at the shrubbery at the base of the cherry tree and were startled by the untroubled gaze of a fox which gave up on us and turned away.

the canal, early morning

The next morning a visit to Tottenham Hale and the canal that runs alongside the Walthamstow wetlands offered a complete contrast to the urban activity of the night before. Here all was placid and calm, and, if it had not been for the trains, it was easy to imagine you were in the countryside.

Cecilia’s place

And then the trip to St John’s Wood to visit the Cecilia Colman Gallery. Another contrast: spacious Regent’s Park, the London Zoo, the Regent’s Park mosque, Lord’s cricket ground, and St John’s Wood High Street with its cafes and shops – a small world away from edgier Haringey, but cosmopolitan nevertheless.

small three legged bowl at Cecila Colman’s

The Gallery has been in London for forty years having opened in 1977 and is one of the few remaining shops on St John’s Wood High Street which survived the transformation of the area in the last few decades. Cecilia chooses all the pieces and artists herself and is passionate about the work she exhibits. She chose eight recent Arscott ceramic pieces – do drop in to have a look.

large stoneware vase

On another note, we are all very pleased that CUP ceramics project (see previous blog) hit its crowdfunding target with 5 days to spare. Over 90 people pledged contributions, an excellent indication of the support for an open-access studio providing a creative community for all types of ceramicists to share skills and ideas in a relaxed environment

blue vase