ceramics - Page 9 of 9 - Peter Arscott

Pope to belatrova

August 4th, 2014/1 Comment/in Blog, ceramic art, poetry /by Peter Arscott

belatrovians will know that we at No 9 Bankside are hard working and industrious and that we subsequently reward ourselves at the end of the week with a deliciously cold Dry Martini lovingly prepared by the Alcomeister hours in advance so as to reap the most from this sublime Emperor of Cocktails. We have also more than hinted at the excellent qualities of the Negroni in a previous blog. But today we will sing the praises of an altogether different drink and toast a man whose standing should be far better appreciated than perhaps it is. How does all this relate to art, design and craft?

Ross on Wye

Ross on Wye is a charming town on the northern edge of the Forest of Dean and perhaps the birthplace of British tourism when in 1745 the rector Dr John Egerton started taking friends on boat trips down the valley to appreciate the river scenery, its castles and abbeys, its precipices and its altogether picturesque environment. By the 1850s the Wye Tour established the area as a tourist attraction. The town is known for its independent shops, narrow streets and market square with its market hall. Opposite the church, the Prospect is a public garden offering a view of the famous horseshoe bend in the River Wye, as well as views of the distant Black Mountains in Wales.

The Man of Ross

The Prospect was created by one John Kyrle. He is without doubt the town’s most famous son (and we say this in the full knowledge that two of the founding members of Mott the Hoople were from Ross). He devoted his life to philanthropic works, introducing a public water supply to the town and laying out the Prospect Gardens. He also reconstructed and added pinnacles to the unsafe 14th century spire of the Church of St. Mary and gave it a magnificent tenor bell. He sponsored the causeway to the nearby Witton Bridge and set up funds for needy local children to attend school. Kyrle lived modestly as a bachelor on an income, it is said, of £500 per year. Apart from Kyrle’s charitable works and deeds, he also settled disputes, supported the schools, tended the sick and helped the poor. His public-mindedness also extended to beautifying the town and its surrounding landscape.

lisping babe

His life and good works were celebrated by the poet Alexander Pope in his Moral Essays written in 1732 and called him the ‘Man of Ross’, the name by which he has been known ever since:

“…Who taught that heav’n directed Spire to rise?  

The Man of Ross, each lisping babe replies.”

Now, Pope, though an interesting poet, was also a hugely influential landscape gardener and as the perfect representative of Augustan poetry he uses the same principles when it comes to landscape gardening. The Augustan style takes its inspiration from ancient Rome and Greece, emphasizing elegance, harmony, balance, formal strictness and simplicity. We are not just talking Geometry here but surely you’ll agree that it is one easy step from Pope’s harmony to the perfect balance of Mondrian‘s paintings (and to his New York connections) and thus to belatrova’s Manhattan range of ceramics and tables.

Mondrian

manhattan collection

And to celebrate these 18th Century geniuses why not raise a cocktail to them? Your 18th Century taste buds were likelier to go for the sweet rather than the dry, so, in keeping with the general theme, we thought the Manhattan hit the spot:

2 ounces whiskey (rye preferable)

1/2 ounce sweet vermouth

2-3 dashes Angostura bitters Maraschino cherry for garnish

Preparation:

Pour the ingredients into a mixing glass with ice cubes.

Stir well.

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Garnish with the cherry.

Ladies and gentlemen, raise your glasses to the Man of Ross, and consider this: the pursuit of all that is excellent in design and harmony continues in Ross on Wye with the launch of a new gallery in the town centre. The Studio Gallery, open from the 16th August, is exhibiting ceramics, painting and high quality craft, and would love to see you. So would belatrova, whose work is on show there.

what you might see at the Studio Gallery

“Hope springs eternal in a young man’s breast: Man never is, but always to be blest.”

Alexander Pope

Azure, sky blue, ultramarine and cobalt – who says Britain is the land of rain?

July 24th, 2014/0 Comments/in art ceramics, Blog, hand painted coffee tables /by Peter Arscott

a view from Tresco

We live in a land of contrasts in the UK – there is so much diversity. Take the Lake District and Berkshire Downs, the Scottish Highlands and the Norfolk Broads, the wild Jurassic coast of Southern England and the sedimentary London basin, Fingal’s Cave, Salisbury Plain, Cheddar Gorge, and yes, there is even a touch of the Caribbean to be found 30 miles from the Cornish mainland. You don’t believe us?

ferry

Lucky belatrova took a boat from Penzance and went to a very small place in a beautiful archipelago. Tresco is a small island measuring about two and a half miles long by a mile wide, and it is one of the five inhabited islands which, together with 200 or so islands, islets and rocks, form the Isles of Scilly.

Augustus

In 1834, the Duchy of Cornwall leased the Isles of Scilly to a liberal-minded squire, Augustus Smith, who became the Lord Proprietor of the

Tresco Abbey Gardens

islands. He built his home, Tresco Abbey, alongside the ruins of an old priory and set about creating a garden containing plants from all over the world. Tresco Abbey Garden is internationally renowned as having one of the finest sub-tropical flora and fauna collections in the Northern Hemisphere. The family still run the business as the Tresco Estate, and own Tresco island.

angry bird

As there are no predators or grey squirrels, the red squirrel was introduced recently and there is now a thriving colony of about 30. One was spotted in the Abbey Gardens, a flash of dark red moving amongst the Echium and Pelargonium. And being a birdwatcher of sorts, Mr b got very excited and spotted Oyster Catchers, Grey Heron, Terns, Ibis, Egrets and Godwits. He was also mobbed by angry sea gulls.

shrimps from Ruin Beach

Later that evening with the tide slowly rising a shrimping party netted a generous catch which was cooked and then eaten at a picnic overlooking the harbour. As you can see, there are no half measures here: one carries tables and chairs to the top of a hill to get the most out of an occasion like this.

picnic

tacking

A sailing trip to the smaller island of Samson was a symphony of azure and greens, gentle wavesand distant bird cries, white sand and clear water. What an experience it was, tacking back to Tresco harbour – a commemorative ceramic is called for, and here it is, just out of the kiln:

belatresco dish

Back at the workshop after this idyllic break, the sun, sea and clean air, combined with the walking, cycling and (ahem) swimming, meant that cobwebs were swept away and a desire to use Tresco blues came surging out of the belatrovian brush and onto one of our coffee tables.

Tresco-inspired coffee table

coffee table

Of course, like everywhere else in the UK, Tresco can be grey, battered and windy, but it was hard to imagine while we were there.

water off Samson Flats

Khaneh Takani – is it a compulsion or a tradition?

May 16th, 2014/0 Comments/in Blog /by Peter Arscott

clutter – but not belatrova’s

Spring cleaning: why do we do it? Iranians call it khaneh takani (“shaking the house”) – and it may be good for you, after all a cluttered space does not just look a mess, it may also affect your peace of mind. “Where’s the thingymebob I need for the whatsit, I could swear I left it on the table right here while I was molding the clay on the thingy. It should be next to the whoojemaflips…oh, they’re gone too.”

yes, a potter’s kidney.

Yes, clutter is the enemy of productivity, and, as you may have noticed, it also challenges one’s ability to master the terminology of the ceramicist’s workshop. Well, do you know what a kidney, a natch, a whirler, a slip trailer or a toggle is?

But those of us who are disorganised or untidy by nature need not worry. It only becomes a problem when the person is not just messy but impaired by the clutter, when significant portions of, say, a workshop cannot be used for the purpose intended or when you find yourself working cheek by jowl with a pug mill at your back, hemmed in by stacks of clay on one side and shelving on another.

We are not saying that belatrova ever allowed this to happen – it would be an exaggeration – but the time seemed right for a radical reorganisation of space.

River Cleggy in Wales

This compulsion came over us after coming back from the Welsh countryside where grandparental duties involving children and a horse had meant open air walks and an appreciation of the wide open landscape.

a complex personality

An irrelevant aside: Shetland ponies are strange little things – their whole posture speaks of world weariness and fatalism, but their actual characters can be quite complex; crafty, sensitive, single-minded and self-possessed are just some of the adjectives that come to mind. This one is called Tinkerbell, sometimes known as Stinkerbell.

Walking back into the workshop after the Welsh break led to a general rolling up of sleeves and shifting of shelves, racks and slab rollers to create more space for showing our wares as well as a more suitable area for belatrovian productivity.

the new showroom

Result: belatrova is even more of a beehive, with some new and interesting stuff coming out of the kilns, and not just in our four ranges. This long three-legged scooped bowl has something of the 1950s about it.

Do drop in and have a look at the rest – the showroom space we now have looks good, and we’ll offer you tea or coffee (remember that Dry Martinis are only on Friday afternoons). There is usually someone in all day but it is best to give us a call beforehand just in case we are out delivering or at a meeting.

a cavernous new space created

the showroom entrance

the great Paul Klee’s never ending reach

December 2nd, 2013/1 Comment/in art, bowl, ceramic art, hand painted coffee tables, painting, pots /by Peter Arscott

belatrova conga at the Open Day

So many of you came to our Open Days on Saturday 30th November and Sunday 1st December, that we ran out of coffee, white wine and mince pies. Although Unit 9 Bankside is a workshop, please feel free to drop by at any time, though a ‘phone call beforehand is a good idea, just in case.

belatrova squad

Those of you who came were able to see the exhibition of table paintings which we set up just for the two days, and this proved very popular. These tabletops are all hand painted, each one a painting in acrylic and then varnished over with a heat resistant lacquer.

With a big space dedicated to the tables only, most viewers took their own time to look at each individual piece and enjoyed the experience of a gallery-like atmosphere and the pleasure of looking down at paintings and walking around them. Try it at home, it’s so much more comfortable than looking up at paintings on walls. And you can put hot mugs of tea on them too.

One or two of you, having been to the Paul Klee exhibition at the Tate Modern, noted a connection between his painting and some of the tables. Well spotted. Klee is a particular hero of belatrova’s and every now and again surfaces in our work. Here are some Klee-like examples:

paul klee table

a bit more klee

The Klee exhibition is one of the best to be held anywhere, and even if you are not familiar with his work, belatrova recommends a visit (we’ve been twice already); he was innovative and always trying out new ways to make marks on a surface, and, seventy three years after his death, you can see how much he has influenced artists.

belatrova is not sure that Klee ever made any ceramics, but had he done so the results would have been as engaging as Picasso’s, though gentler. Here are two we made earlier with P.K. in mind:

two Klee pots by belatrova

yes, you could win a belatrova ceramic

October 16th, 2013/7 Comments/in art ceramics /by Peter Arscott

Please have a long look at this close-up of one of our dishes. Allow the colours and shapes to simmer and bubble away in your mind, and then come up with a name for that range. Anything permitted, barring whatever might get us sued.

name it and win it

Either go to our website and send us an email via contact page or simply add a comment on the blog. If you are successful, not only will the name be forever associated with this particular belatrova style, but you may win a prize: the very ceramic you see in the picture.

The result will be democratically decided (ie much discussed and argued over) by the team on Friday 1st November at No 9 Bankside at 5pm, and announced officially in the next blog.

Valencia

We all know that belatrova makes unique hand-made and painted tables and ceramics. The variety of one-off designs is apparent when you walk into our workshop in Ledbury. Within the multiplicity of colours, brushstrokes and shapes there are a few discernable themes or ranges; one example being the mellow ochre look produced by mixing a little red iron oxide in the glaze into which the painted dish or bowl is dipped before firing. What to call this range? The team scratched its chin and mused one late Friday afternoon as it unwound with a Dry Martini (see blog May, Relocation). Names are important, after all, and after a great deal of discussion we decided that the range in question would be given the name of Valencia. There is something of coastal Mediterranean Spain in the tones.

Inspired, the team went on to name three other ranges or “looks”. Here they are:

Manhattan

Brushstroke Blues

Allegro

We think highly of you and expect to receive some poetic and/or pithy ideas, so please give it a go. There’s a whole lot of biscuited bowls and dishes just waiting for the belatrova touch.

ready and waiting

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