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Four legs good, eight better

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Dear all, the path uphill to Bradlow Knoll seems to get steeper with time. It didn’t help that it was actually hot and sunny, but it’s still worth the climb for the view and for the reward of parking your backside on CJ’s bench, but age does have an effect on the old limbs. Loss of muscle mass and other factors come into play in your seventies, so use it or lose it, they say. Any physical activity, like lifting some light weights at the local gym (ha!), will help keep your muscles big and strong. And also, follow the official recommended intake of oily fish. Solution? Keep lots of smoked salmon in the fridge and force yourself to get off the sofa to eat it.

A shadow of my former self

If humans had, say, eight legs, there’s no doubt running and climbing would be easier. Bradlow Knoll would be a doddle for any spider scaled up to the size of a human. Spiders are faster than humans. While we can run faster in absolute terms, a spider’s speed relative to its size is much higher. A hunting spider can move at speeds over 1 mile per hour – scaled up, its speed would exceed hundreds of miles per hour.

Palais des Vaches

The fastest-running spider is the desert-dwelling Moroccan flic-flac spider, which can reach speeds of up to 3.8 mph using a unique rolling movement named “flic-flac” (apparently a circus tumbling technique) launching itself into a series of forward flips, gaining speed with each rolling leap. Click here.

Ziggy

You ask: where does all this arachnid lowdown come from? One member of the PAC team is of course Ziggy (in charge of keeping fly numbers down) and he is a mine of information. He claims he has a flic-flac cousin in Surbiton. Another member of the PAC team is Spyro, who, as the Marketing Manager, is rightly reminding me that PAC is about ceramics, not spider speeds or muscle wastage.

Palais des Vaches

The Palais des Vaches is showing a number of new Peter Arscott ceramics in its spacious gallery, open on Thursdays and at the weekends 11 – 4. Those of you who’ve followed this blog for some time will remember that the building used to be a cowshed and milking parlour before its conversion. It’s the brainchild of Nick and Caroline Rothschild – he is a pioneer in the video industry in the 1970s, where he made films and won a Gold Medal in the New York Film and Video Festival. After living in London, Nick and Caroline (also an artist), moved down to the family estate, which includes the beautiful gardens at Exbury.

Palais des Vaches. Photo M. Law

It’s a unique gallery, just as cows are – just like no two humans have the exact same fingerprints, no two cows have the exact same spots. Farmers use individual cow spots to differentiate them apart.

porcelain cow

Sorry to go on about running up Bradlow Hill, but cows can run on average at 17 mph, with a maximum speed of 25 mph. So, they can easily beat a human. So far, eight-legged and four-legged beings have the advantage over us bipeds. But they can’t make ceramics.

stability on three legs

Three legs, on the other hand, offer stability, more so than four legs, as anybody who has bought a PAC three-legged bowl will testify. Think of camera tripods and, with Palais des Vaches in mind, milking stools (Spyro is quietly admiring this blog’s ability to bring in ceramics while also holding forth on numbers of legs).

Palais des Vaches. Photo M. Law

What about a hundred legs? There are several reasons for all of those legs on a centipede, but they mainly help make them very fast. Since they are both predators and prey, this helps out a lot. They can travel 1.3 feet per second.

Palais des Vaches Photo. M. Law

A man won £100 on the lottery and decided to blow it on something he wouldn’t normally buy. So, he went to the pet shop and looked around. There was a centipede for sale for £100.

 “Why is it so expensive?” he asked the pet shop owner

 “Because it can talk.”

  “No way, centipedes don’t talk.”

 But the owner promised him it was a talking centipede, so he bought it and took it home. That evening he spoke to the centipede:

“I’m off to the pub. Do you fancy a pint?”

There was no answer, so he went to the pub alone. Next day, he asked it again:

“I’m off to the pub. Do you fancy a pint?”

Again, no answer.  On the third day, and a little fed up, he asked the centipede again:

“I’m off to the pub. Do you fancy a pint?”

 The centipede replied:

 “I heard you the first time. I’m just putting my bloody shoes on.”

Torero vase at the Palais des Vaches

Smile if you’re not wearing knickers.

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Mud. I hate walking on it but love handling it.  Followers of this blog will know that I have had encounters and slippages with the substance in the past. Nowadays I am much more prudent when while on it, and have even developed a technique for walking downhill on mud which is half penguinesque and half Chaplinesque.  Bradlow Knoll was very muddy.

The treacherous mud of Bradlow Knoll

Apologies for the attention-grabbing title. It is only barely relevant to the subject of mud, which is what I want to talk about, but it will nevertheless justify itself at a later stage.

Yoohoo vase

Ceramicists make mud look good, I was thinking to myself, and what is the difference between mud and clay anyway? I was driving along a wet, muddy and slimy track in search of a tarmacked road and civilization. The Satnav was telling me it was the best route, but satnavs are not to be trusted. The sun was setting and it was drizzling. The car was beginning to slide on the gradients and long bends – there was nobody to be seen, only the pale chalky mud of what turned out to be The Ridgeway, ancient Britain’s equivalent of the M4 motorway, which was what I was actually looking for before getting into this mess.

The Ridgeway – photo Jim Champion – CC BY 4.0

The track’s surface varies from chalk-rutted farm paths and green lanes (which become extremely muddy and pot-holed after rain) to small sections of drivable roads covered in gravel and crushed stone. It is the oldest trackway in UK. It is 87 miles long. For at least 5,000 years travellers have used it as a reliable trading route from the Dorset to the Norfolk coast.The high dry ground made travel easy and provided a measure of protection by giving traders a commanding view, warning against potential attacks. I, on the other hand, was only trying to get to London to visit an exhibition or two before the satnav led me into this quagmire.

The White Horse of Uffington

Despite wondering if I was breaking the law, I had just previously enjoyed driving past the White Horse of Uffington up on its hill. This is prehistoric landscape – silt deposits show the figure was made in the period between 1380 BC and 550 BC, confirming it as Britain’s oldest chalk figure – and still conveys a timeless quality with its sloping open contours and scattered dwellings.

Before getting back to mud vs clay, I can confirm that the track is a designated bridleway (shared with horses and bicycles), but also includes parts designated as byway, which permits the use of motorised vehicles – though not between October and April, which is when I was on it. Never trust Satnavs. I did get to London.

As you probably all know by now, clay is a specific type of mud, defined by its fine particle size and mineral composition, giving it a stickiness and ability to hold shape, while mud is really soil mixed with water, but can also be used in pottery. If you dig up some mud and manage to roll it into a tubular shape and then coil it without cracking, that’s mud good enough for pottery – though ideally you would add sand and other particles to strengthen it when firing.

Mud Sun by Richard Long – National Gallery

Once in London, at the National Gallery, I came across Richard Long’s Mud Sun. This is made entirely of mud from the River Avon applied by hand onto a black background. The hand marks highlight the physical process of making art, and it works as a flat sculpture and at the same time reveals how it was made. It’s a very direct form of human creativity, and took me back to the ancient Ridgeway, though I’m not claiming that the marks left on the car show any creativity.

Earthen by Jodie Carey

One of the exhibitions was held on the roof of the entrance to Temple Station by the Thames. Jodie Carey’s Earthen are two enormous vessels made entirely outdoors on a hilltop using the earth of East Sussex, each piece cast in the ground and then wrapped in hand-stitched cloth and buried. Bits of soil, stone and plant roots are all part of the shaping process. It draws on the symbol of the simple pot used across the world and across time – but these are towering and imposing. If you click on the blue link above, it will take you to a very good video that explains the process.

Petworth gardens by J M W Turner

The (non-mud) exhibition at Tate Britain was dedicated to John Constable and J M W Turner. They are different from each other; Constable very earthbound, a great observer of land, trees and people at work, and probably better at mud that Turner, whereas Turner tries to capture air and light, so that some of his paintings are almost abstract. His painting of the gardens at Petworth would float away were it not for the deer in the foreground pinning it down like an anchor. He is a tonalist painter, using muted colours, often a limited palette, and often wet-on-wet or glazed layers to achieve a harmonious and unified scene. He is fabulous.

Cubist vase

At PCA we tend to go the other way and paint the pieces with contrasting tones – red with green, white and blue or brown, black dots on a lighter background, etc – not that we claim the same stature as Mr Turner; we are quite modest (more confident marketing required here, please – Spiro). We are going through a “spot” phase right now, as you can tell from the images scattered around this blog.

Juggler vase

The reason for this blog’s title is to lure you into reading a short story published online by Literally Stories. It’s only 990 words long, so won’t take up your time. Like a vase that isn’t filled with flowers, or a painting that’s never seen, or a sonata that’s never heard, my story will not exist unless somebody reads it. As the poet Samuel Menashe says:

A pot poured out

Fulfills its spout

You can read “Smile if you’re not wearing knickers” by clicking here.

Mud facts: playing in mud makes you happier. Pigs wallow in mud to keep cool because they do not have sweat glands. Mud packs owe their popularity to vitamin E in mud which revitalises the skin. The band Mud had 14 UK Top 20 hits between 1973 and 1976, including three number ones. Other English words for mud include clabber, clauber, clart, cloom, glaur, groot, grummel, lutulence, slather, sleck, slike, slutch, sposh, stabble.

Juggler vase 2

Bad mud joke:

Paul and Vince were digging a ditch when Paul made a careless swipe with his spade and cut off the Vince’s ear.
“Help me find it in all this mud,” cried Vince. “Then they can sew it back on.”
After a couple of minutes, Paul shouted, “Here it is”, and handed Vince the ear.
“That’s not it,” said Vince, and threw it back in the muddy ditch. “Mine had a pencil behind it.”

It’s OK folks – Spring is around the corner

Nude slab-rolling?

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It is pouring with rain today. It’s pelting down, almost showing off, as if to make up for the incredibly dry months we’ve had. You can tell from the usual image of the view of Ledbury from Bradlow Knoll that it’s been a long dry summer here in the UK.  The consequences of the lack of rain this year include declared droughts in some areas, agriculture with poor crop quality and reduced grass growth and environmental stress on rivers with low flows. It’s also meant a hot studio and the need to wear as few articles of clothing as possible without getting arrested for indecency.

Rain-god vase summoning the clouds

This has led Peter Arscott Ceramics (PAC) to consider establishing the first, and possibly only, nudist ceramic workshops in the country. “Surely”, says Spiro, “there’s a market for it? You Brits, unlike us Greeks, like to expose as much of yourselves as possible the moment the sun makes an appearance. And think of the marketing opportunities…we could call ourselves The Naked Potter” However, after proper consideration it was deemed a Health & Safety issue. It’s OK for Spiro, he’s a figment of our imagination, but for us humans? Just think of the dangers to exposed parts anywhere near a red-hot kiln, or something getting stuck in the slab roller in a moment of forgetfulness or crouching too low near the pugmill. Anyway, there already is a Naked Potter who paints bottoms onto his dishes (butt plates).

After some research, Naked Pottery turns out to be a unique art form that utilises raw, earthy clay. The term “naked” refers to the artist’s openness and vulnerability as they create, connecting deeply with the material and their creative process. The finished pieces have a distinctive organic and often flawed appearance, as the clay is fired unglazed. Sadly, potters, both historical and contemporary, seem to have worn normal clothing while working with clay.

Dancing vases

But at PAC we too connect deeply with our creative process. And as has been mentioned in previous blogs, conveying a particular emotion in an abstract ceramic piece is possible, so long as there is not too much nuance intended. Anger, excitement, horror, joy, surprise, disgust – yes, both positive and negative emotions are conveyable. Given that most people buy ceramics to take home and enhance their domestic environment, the brighter and more joyful pieces are always going to be first in the queue. “Darling, I’ve just bought this vase for the living room. It conveys a sense of shame and repugnance which I find intriguing” is hardly a winner.

When a piece is made because the maker wants to get something across which he or she believes is more important that its actual practical use, then we are straying into the realms of art, of sculpture. PAC usually strives to achieve a fine balance between functionality (vase) and art (shape, colour, size).

Supplicant piece

However, sometimes a prevailing mood can tug the hands in one direction only. In fact, the piece above (Supplicant piece) is not at all functional – unlike the Naked Potter’s pieces it has no bottom, so cannot be a vase. Isn’t it miserable? It’s begging for something, I think forgiveness, and is entirely lacking in joyfulness or delight. Only its Mum would love it.

It’s probably true that artisans know exactly what they want to do and know how they are going to do it.  At PAC we don’t know exactly what we are going to do. We know vaguely how to get there, but we don’t know which choices we are going to make. For example, we might decide to make a vase with raised arms, but until we cut the slabbed clay into the shapes, we have no idea exactly what those arms will look like. Too much pre-planning removes the element of surprise that keeps a piece fresh. Every piece is singular.

Ceramic version of Picasso’s violin

At other times, the desire to try something different takes over, when emotions are absent and all the hands want to do is to create something atypical: an architectural construct whose height and width will only just fit inside the kiln, a wall piece, a copy of Picasso’s violin, or a snake. This is the thing about clay: it’s a wondrous material which lends itself to so many interpretations that you can get carried away.

Wall piece

Carried away? Yes and no. For some time, the idea of making a twelve-foot-long ladder out of … wait for it … porcelain, yes, porcelain, has been brewing in our heads*. The Porcelain Ladder ©. A technical challenge without a doubt, but possible. And what a metaphor that would be. Imagine the resulting piece up against a wall in the Tate Gallery: functionality sabotaged by its own matter, the most sublime and delicate type of clay. Or how about a porcelain bridge over the Thames? Who would dare walk across it? Do you see where we can go with this concept? Porcelain sledgehammer? Stoneware flagpole? Fine china knuckle dusters? Ceramic combat helmets? (“Yes, that’s quite enough. The heat’s obviously got to you” says Spiro)

Large sentinel vase

It hasn’t stopped raining and the grass is already turning from dull brown to a hint of green. The various ceramic birdbaths in the garden are full and have all got a red sediment at the bottom. This, it turns out, is due to a red algae, Haematococcus pluvial, which thrives in sunlight and produces the red pigment called astaxanthin to protect itself from UV radiation. Who’d have thought – there I was blaming the dirty wood pigeons. Our wood pigeons, however unhygienic, are true art connoisseurs and prefer to scrub their armpits in the Joan Mirò bath, as pictured below with its sediment.

Ladder joke: Fred and Dave, two engineers, are puzzled and scratching their heads next to a flagpole. A girl on a bike stops and asks what’s wrong. “We have to work out the height of the flagpole, but we don’t have a ladder,” says Fred. The girl gets a wrench out of her bike saddlebag and loosens the bolts, then lays the pole flat on the ground. Next, she gets a measuring tape out. “15 metres,” she says, and rides away. “Typical woman”, says Dave. “we ask for the height and she gives us the length.”

Large construct

  • We’re hoping one of you will challenge us and prove that it’s an idea long ago made into an art piece and exhibited at a gallery.

The call of the cicada

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View of the Ter, from the monastery

No slog up to Bradlow Knoll this month. Instead, a walk in the countryside outside Vic in Catalunya, to visit the ancient monastery of Sant Pere de Casserres perched high above a bend in the river Ter. Challenging because of the heat (about 34° centigrade) but rewarding for the view, and for the architecture of this 11th century Benedictine building – plus there’s a café where you can get a drink.

The nave of Sant Pere

Vic itself is an attractive city with a welcoming central square with shops and bars, and a Saturday market that beats most others into a cocked hat. There is a beautifully laid-out museum of medieval art in the old part of the city, with a collection saved from churches and monasteries in the region, including a painting of Christ’s circumcision – a rather concerned Mary looks on, unsure about the priest’s competence, while the infant Jesus seems to be rather laid back about it.

Vic is also famous for its sausages. Of course we were not there for the sausages, though many were eaten. Luckily, we were on holiday in a small coastal town, so the sea was there for cooling off, although, possibly encouraged by the heat, the cicadas were particularly noisy throughout, singing their little hearts out, high up in the pine trees, in the hope that a lady cicada might fall for their tune and, after mating, might deposit her eggs in the bark.

Cicada. Watercolour by Lisa Dearling

Never having seen a cicada before, here is what I found out about them: both male and female cicadas die within a few weeks after emerging from the soil, where they spend most of their lives at depths down to about 2.5 m (8 ft). The “singing” of male cicadas is produced principally using a special structure called a tymbal, a pair of which lies below each side of the abdominal region. The structure is buckled by muscular action and unbuckles rapidly on muscle relaxation, so quickly that to the human ear it is almost one continuous sound. Most cicadas go through a life cycle that lasts 2–5 years. Some species have much longer life cycles, such as the North American cicadas that go through either a 17-year or a 13-year life cycle. But the point is, they must be the loudest insects on the planet and once the sun sets everything seems too quiet.

Click here to listen to the cicadas

So, if you’re looking for “quiet”, then nighttime is good, or very early morning, before the sun hits the trees. Yours truly, in search of oneness with Nature and Zen-like tranquillity, walked down to a small cove at 6.30 in the morning while the cicadas were still snoring and swam accompanied only by a cormorant. Even the iPhone camera’s click seemed intrusive.

Cala Xelida at 6.30 am

Perhaps inspired by the cormorant’s ceaseless search for fish, a drive to nearby Palafrugell’s fish market followed. Once the centre of the Catalan cork industry, it now serves as a summer holiday town for residents of cities such as Barcelona and Girona. Many narrow streets emanate from Plaça Nova – a large square with bars, restaurants and boutiques, and not far is a ceramics gallery called Tejemaneje on Carrer Sant Antoni next to the market.

Tejemaneje entrance

Stepping into its cool and elegant interior is a pleasure. It is run by Jordi Tejedor, designer, artist, ceramicist and businessman, whose work is exhibited along with that of others. His is the large neanderthal figure that greets customers as they walk in, by which I mean the sculpture on display, and not Jordi.

Jumping figure copper oxide on white clay by Jordi Tejedor

.It all seemed a very long way from Peter Arscott Ceramics and the studio with the rest of the team resentful at their exclusion from a holiday in the sun – but then, as I explained to them, getting a heavy Japanese pug machine, a 200 AD Bishop of Tremithus (and patron saint of potters), as well as a spider onto an EasyJet flight would be a challenge. Furthermore, they should pity me, since a machine, a figment and an arachnid can cope with heat, whereas I, a human, am not designed for such temperatures. And the mosquitos would undoubtedly attack me too. As proof here is a drawing of my right leg after a night’s vampiric assault.

Previous mention of sausages reminds me that a  slab potter will find that there is usually a great deal of unused clay or cut-offs when making a piece. To recycle this clay, these lumps are thrown into a large bucket and soaked with water until enough is amassed to lay out on a surface to harden to the right consistency. At this point, as the clay is cut up into sections with a cheese wire, one discovers the wooden sculpting tool and the metal needle tool that disappeared so long ago. The clay cannot be too soft that it squirts out of the mill, or too hard that it impedes the action of wedging and removing any bubbles. When it is extruded as a long sausage, it is ready for use again. Not an ounce of clay is wasted, thanks to Shinto the Pugmill.

waiting to be pugged

Because patience and persistence are necessary for making pottery, given that every stage requires concentration and patience, from preparing the clay (as above) to moulding and finishing it, accepting the occasional flaw may add to the overall authenticity of the piece. It’s important to strike a balance between maintaining control and letting go – sometimes failures and setbacks are not the ends but often occasions for development.

Waving Yoohoo vase

Why am I telling you this? Well, I just want to come clean and show you two examples of what I’m talking about, from the Yoohoo series. The one above shows clearly that there is a gap between the top of the right arm and the body of the vase, caused probably by my allowing the arm to dry more quickly than the body. This was already apparent at bisque stage, but I decided to paint it and glaze fire at 1200℃ and I think the gap adds something to the piece, and gives it more movement.

Saluting Yoohoo vase

The second one  (above) has its blue arm dipping away from the rim of the vase at an angle, instead of being perpendicular – probably because its own weight dragged it one way with the extreme heat – but again, it gives the vase a certain quirkiness which makes me think of American sailors’ salutes in those Hollywood movies of the 50s. Anyway, you’re perfectly entitled to tell me I’m wrong and deluded.

Sausages in Oxford market. Photo by Kaihsu Tai

Just as you are with my constant references to sausages. Does every culture have its own sausage? The Spanish have the chorizo, the Catalans their fuet, the Germans their bratwurst, the USA their hotdog, the UK their banger, the boerewors comes from South Africa, the gyulai is Hungarian, the linguiça is Brazilian. Surely this shows that we all have more in common than not, and wouldn’t it be wonderful if the world’s problems were fixed by annual international sausage conventions?

Keep well and stay cool.

April showers bring more than flowers.

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The art of walking on sludge requires you to walk bow-legged and on bent knees, leaning forward if going uphill, so that by the time you reach CJ’s bench at the top of Bradlow Hill your thighs ache like a ballerina’s after five consecutive performances of Swan Lake.  By the way, someone has left a nice pair of gloves that are now wedged between the slats waiting for their owner.

England’s sewage system

The rain has been relentless in this part of the world, making the ground as soft as chocolate fondant, delaying planting and seeding by farmers, flooding many areas, reducing oxygen in the soil (think of the poor worms) and forcing water companies to allow sewage into the rivers – this last revolting image the direct result of the privatisation of water and the neglect of any control over “market forces” in the guise of hedge funds. The result is priority for shareholders’ dividends over proper investment in upgrading an outdated system that can no longer cope with the zillion turds we produce daily. Enough moaning.

Bluebells in Frith Wood

Despite the muddy pathway into Frith wood, I ventured in, knowing that you would want proof that at least some things are still as they should be. What with Ukraine, Gaza, climate change, polarized politics, and all the rest of the present gloom fest, it’s good to know that the bluebells are with us, and the wood anemones.

Anemones

On my way out of the woods I passed by a large patch of forget-me-nots. The Greek name Myosotis is a combination of “mus” and “otis” and means “mouse ear”, referring to the shape of the leaves. I’m posting the image because they are beautiful delicate blue flowers with a yellow eye and grey-green velvety leaves, and they are vibrant, heart-warming and make one smile – a reminder of a friend who is no longer with us.

Ceramics: the good news is that the new kiln is now up and running, and a first batch of vases has been glaze-fired successfully.

Big Yoohoo vase just out of the new kiln

The kiln is a Rohde front-loader called Helmut – very efficient and accurate, with a good work ethic.

Introducing Helmut.

He is extremely heavy and here I must give thanks to Steve whose knowledge of cantilevered engineering worked a treat when we moved H into position. He deserves a medal and should any of you be interested in acquiring or finding out about medals of the Great War then Steve, professional military history researcher that he is, is your man. Click here to visit his sight. So far, Helmut seems to get along with the rest of the team – it’s all change here with the introduction of Shinto the Pugmill too.

Thelonious undone.

Spiro and Ziggy are very sad that Thelonious (the old pugmill) is no longer here, and were upset to see him being loaded onto the back of a lorry by a forklift truck to be taken to the (gulp) scrapyard.

Spiro and Ziggy making a scene

It seems that nobody wants anything requiring three-phase power. If anybody is looking for an inverter designed to drive a three-phase induction motor, please get in touch – this one is an IMO iDrive2 XKL.

While writing this blog, news arrived from local MP Jesse Norman that the government has published the River Wye action plan, with up to £35 million in new funding, setting out a wide range of measures to address phosphate pollution and other environmental impacts on the Wye. It has also appointed a new River Champion for the river. All this could lead to a properly funded single collective long-term effort bringing all groups together. That’s a good result and, who knows, it may even be the first step towards the eventual re-nationalization of water.

Back to ceramics.

Stockpiling at PAC.

Here is an architectural piece made from left-overs from the slab roller. It would look better if it were 10ft high.

And before I finally abandon the issue of what can be found bobbing on the surface of our rivers:

  • What is brown and sticky?
  • A stick.

Have a good Spring.

Anatomy of a fall

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The view from Bradlow Knoll at 10 am New Year’s Day

Pottery is just an excuse to play with mud. The material used is really nothing more than soil clay that has been mined. Mud is wet soil. Roll a ball of moist sediment into a thin string – if you can, it’s clay. It’s generally accepted now that playing with mud allows children to connect with the natural world around them, and helps develop tactile skills, boosts creativity and imagination. And it’s fun and therapeutic. And I think this applies to adults too. Using your hands to shape clay into a vessel is an ancient practice that is fulfilling, and whole cultures are identified by their pottery, after all it is one of the oldest and most widespread of artforms. Pots say a lot about people.

New Year’s Day, old moon.

But as you well know, when it’s been raining a lot in the countryside, mud becomes an enemy not a friend, and you have to take it into account when you go for a walk, specially up and down a hill like Bradlow Knoll. In the early morning of the first day of the New Year, the sky was clear after the rainfall of a few days – weighing the pros and cons, and mindful of my duty to my faithful blog readers and seeing a pale waning moon beckoning in a blue sky, I decided the omens were good for a climb up the hill and a first photo of this year’s view.

Walk in the woods vase

However, the problem with walking on claggy mud is that you have to keep your eyes on your feet the whole time. One small lapse of concentration and can send your legs into the air, so you try to step on the least wet bits along the edge of the path, head down and unable to appreciate the surrounding landscape. Which is tiring and frustrating, specially deep into Frith Wood where the dark tree cover keeps everything as damp as possible, though there was a wintry sun low in the sky that you could glimpse through the trees.

I was not really enjoying my New Year’s walk. The mud was not fun and therapeutic, though maybe the worms were enjoying it; in one acre of lands there can be more than a million worms, so I imagined them partying underfoot. There is a stretch towards the end of the walk that is surrounded on both sides by brambles so it’s difficult to use the drier edges of the path. It was here that my concentration strayed because the birdsong was so unexpected and loud. I was trying to identify all the various songs (mainly blackbird, robin and bluetit) when it happened.

Some doctors  believe that one of the biggest benefits of mud baths is that they can provide stress relief. Sitting in warm, soft mud can relax the muscles and soothe the mind. They are also thought to relieve stress, joint pain, rheumatoid arthritis and certain skin ailments. Some people use mud baths simply to chill out. What I found myself in face down was not a warm bath of mud but an unrelaxing cold and slimy one that did nothing for my self-esteem.

It was a slow-motion experience in three stages. First the right foot slid backwards, and I thought I’d land on my right knee (no big deal, I thought, just a muddy knee). Second, because it was slightly downhill, my upper body was leaning forward enough to propel me further, so I stuck out my right hand to stop things getting any worse (no big deal, just a muddy hand, as well as knee). Third, my right hand made contact with the mud and slid forward all the way until the whole right side of my body lay obligingly in the quagmire. This happened in less than a second, but it felt very gradual – it’s amazing what your brain can be doing in such a short time: surprise (this cannot be happening!), anger (I showered and put on clean clothes an hour ago in honour of this New Year, and now look!), indignity (God, I hope nobody’s looking!), curiosity (all the birds have suddenly stopped singing, are they having a quiet laugh? Do birds laugh? I must find out), and finally disappointment and petulance (I was being so careful all the way, it’s just not fair).

I met two dog walkers further on, at a fork in their path, and wondered whether they’d heard my expletives. They looked vaguely concerned at my state, and I had two choices: either I let them go along my path to see if they too slipped in the mud or I recommended the alternative path ahead of them. The Devil in me lost and I told them how to best avoid my fate – it was my first good deed of the year. By the time I got home the sun was out again low in the sky and cast a long shadow, reminding me that we’ve already had our shortest day (22 Dec), and that seemed to put things in proportion, so I blamed my shoes, which have no grip and are inappropriate for walks.

guilty shoes

Somewhere in the Frith Wood is the mud imprint of yours truly. It will last until the next rainfall, then dissolve back to its natural muddiness. Mud is the stuff of creation, used to create Adam, so how come it’s used to tarnish people? Mud is thrown at people in accusation, a name is dragged through it, anything dark and confusing is clear as mud, a person who resists change is a stick in the mud. But we potters know better, which is why I hold nothing against it, other than, occasionally, my body.

architectural pieces drying.

And ceramics? (It’s about time you mentioned them, says Spiro). Well, yes, the new kiln is yet to be connected, so I have been making pieces that have not been bisque fired and sit around waiting in the studio, like the ones in the image above, and the set of Yoohoo vases below.

Yoohoo vases waiting for a bisque firing

Also waiting for kiln connection and bisque firing are various figures and pieces made by visitors to the studio. The lynx pictured is a favourite.

Lynx by Lisa Dearling

And finally, and given that these blogs always seem to refer to woods and trees: a man walks into Frith Wood and tries to cut down a talking tree. “You can’t cut me down,” the tree exclaims, “I’m a talking tree!” The man responds, “You may be a talking tree, but you will dialogue.”

Want to know what Nasocarpia is?

/in , /by

November view

Sometimes, when having to make a great physical effort, it helps to have a mantra echoing in your head. Rutile is a good word to pronounce, like, say, elbow or helicopter. The sort of word that comes into your head for no apparent reason when you’re trudging up Bradlow Hill. Anything to take your mind off the increasingly challenging gradient and the pain in your lungs.

Shallow roots

When I finally made it into Frith Wood I saw a fallen tree. I was surprised at how shallow its roots seemed. I suspected that this is due to the trees being tightly packed in a small area and thus competing for light by concentrating on shooting up as high as possible and not wasting time with root depth. But a little research showed that when life gets tough, the roots take the easy option, staying close to the surface and spreading out a long way from the tree. A common misconception is that the root system is a mirror image of the trunk and branches. It turns out a tree’s root system is surprisingly shallow, dominated by long, lateral roots spreading out close to the soil surface and outwards and beyond the branch spread. So, trees are much like us – given to taking the easy option.

Oyster mushroom

The trunks of older trees were hosts to all sorts of fungi, and here’s an image of an oyster mushroom. Mushrooms do not have roots; they have mycelium— a root system that is a mass of filaments called hyphae. I expect you know that. These web-like structures spread into the substrate the fungus is growing on – wood, soil, dead squirrels or compost, and the purpose of the mycelium is to find food sources and collect nutrients for the final creation of its bloom or flower: the mushroom.

Large rutile serving dish (50 cms diam)

There was a reason for the word rutile popping into my head during the hill climb. Rutile (its name is derived from the Latin rutilus meaning “shining, golden-red”) is an oxide mineral composed of titanium dioxide which produces many surprising effects in glazes during cooling in the kiln and is used to enhance the surface character of ceramics.

Rutile spot vase

In other words, you do not know exactly what you’re going to get when you open the kiln, specially if you pour an iron oxide glaze over a bisque surface that has been painted with rutile – it’s all in the lap of the God of Pottery, Khnum, who was depicted by the ancient Egyptians with a ram’s head. He was the creator of the bodies of human children which he made at a potter’s wheel, from clay, and placed in their mothers’ womb. His title was the “Divine Potter”.

Small rutile signal vase

Back to the subject of roots and uprooting, it’s sad saying goodbye to an old friend, specially one that has worked hard in the studio over the years, but the advantages of the new style of pugmill outweigh Thelonious’s steady workhorse qualities and he is shortly going to make way for his replacement.

Thelonious – uprooted

Needless to say, it was difficult breaking the news to him and he is refusing to speak to me (as are Ziggy and Spiro) and goes around the studio with a deeply hurt look. “You’re certainly no Divine Potter”, I heard him mutter under his breath. The indignity of being sold on Ebay was also mentioned. Even the promise of a farewell party has been shrugged off with a sigh, despite the complexities involved in finding exactly the right delicacies for my strange little team: goat yoghurt, spiders and engine oil. I suspect Shimpo, the new pugmill, will be just as fastidious and will only contemplate cheeseburgers (he was born in the USA).

Shimpo – the Jimmy Cagney of pugmills

And cheeseburgers were part of the reason I drove all the way to Stoke-on-Trent, cradle of pottery in the UK. I was there to inspect and then buy Shimpo and bring him back, with the reward of a cheeseburger at one of the motorway service stations on the way back. Somehow, they taste better in a car park when you’re sitting in the car listening to the radio – there’s something vaguely illicit about it if you are not a regular burger eater.

Large rutile planter

I shall miss Thelonious and his whimsical nature. Shimpo, I can tell, is more the James Cagney of pugmills – robust, stocky, slightly aggressive, and “no nonsense”.  He just wants to get down to work, with no pussy-footing – I just hope he gets along with the others.

And finally, a plea to you all. Just as a burger is nothing unless it is eaten, a ceramic cup meaningless unless drunk from, or a song unless heard, so a story unless somebody reads it. If you have ten minutes to spare (and the inclination) please read my short story published online.

Illustrator: Evgenia Barsheva

 It is called A Summary of A Brief History of Nasocarpia, the links with Grietta Ingar and the epidemic of 2049. It is published by Lazuli Literary Group who promote otherworld realism: a genre that represents the known, often mundane world in an elevated or defamiliarizing way through the use of linguistic craft, innovative language, or experimental structure. CLICK HERE.

Marmite explained

/in /by

The view from CJ’s bench on Bradlow Knoll was appropriate for the day, after all it was St Leger’s, the day of the famous horse race (Saturday 16th September) established by Colonel Barry Saint Leger in 1776 and named for him in 1778. An event for three-year-old colts and fillies, it is run annually at Doncaster, Yorkshire. The winner this year was Continuous, the last horse was Alexandroupolis. They say that Winter comes in on the tail of the last St. Leger horse, but global warming may have done for this old adage.

the last horse at the St Leger

The view was grey, misty and damp, and the leaves on the trees have yet to start turning, but the faint mulchy whiff of tired greenery was hinting at Autumn. Somebody had obviously felt the cold recently as they had left traces of a firepit in front of CJ’s bench. Or perhaps it was an impromptu BBQ. Whoever it was had also forgotten his or her disposable vape – I wonder if CJ would’ve approved of the cherry flavour.

BBQ

Given the weather, I don’t believe that a bonfire would have spread and caused a conflagration in Frith Wood. Apart from a few hot days earlier in the week, it’s been mild. Unhappily that’s not been the story in Greece or Libya, or even Canada, and tramping through the cool damp wood seemed so far removed from those weather extremes. However, even in this neck of the woods, manmade calamity lurks in the shape of the River Wye and its slow poisoning by nutrients leaching from livestock manure (about 70%) and sewage treatment works (20%). Most of the agricultural phosphate pollution is from intensive poultry production (from “What’s polluting the Wye?” – Herefordshire Wildlife Trust blog).

Wye pooper

In order to counter any black outlook that may be developing here, may we urge you to join the fight to save the river by subscribing or following Save the Wye on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Here is the link: https://savethewye.org/what-can-you-do-to-help/

Large black and white scrawl vase

Spiro is shouting in my ear that this blog is about marketing ceramics. I have pointed out to him that having unwittingly introduced the word “black” in the context of global warming, I will now exploit its presence in the blog in as measured and respectful a way possible, and with none of the in-your-face cynicism that he always advocates.

Black and white juggler vase at there Palais des Vaches

It is hard to believe Spiro is a 3rd century Bishop of Trimythous, as well as the patron saint of potters, and frankly I am not entirely convinced by his marketing skills. Last month he joined the Ledbury Bank Holiday Carnival Parade saying it was an opportunity to sell pots to the hundreds of Ledburians lining the High Street and was deeply insulted by the pennies people were throwing into the pots he held out, unaware that this the traditional way the parade gathers income for local charities. I had to drag him away when he started berating them in his local Archaic Greek dialect, much to everyone’s amusement who thought this was part of a comedy act.

Poseur vase (Vulcan clay)

Ahem, there is an exhibition at the Palais des Vaches Gallery in Exbury from 29th September, and the theme is “Black & White”. In response to this challenge, Peter Arscott Ceramics (PAC) have made a number of pieces for the show, some are black and white glazed stoneware, and some are made from a dark clay called Vulcan stoneware which comes out of the kiln in a rich dark chocolaty black if left unglazed.

My oh my vase (Palais des caches)

One piece in particular cannot be explained, and for some reason is called Buffoon Vase and wears a top in the shape of Napoleon’s hat. It looks even more inexplicable if you remove the top and insert a flower in it (it can only take one flower, and no water, as it has a leaky bottom). It’s a “marmite” piece – some people will simply like it without having to understand its impractical character, others will just think it’s strange.

Buffoon vase

For those of you unfamiliar with marmite, it is a dark brown yeast extract spread, much liked by half the UK population, and much disliked by the other half. It is used as a metaphor for something that is an acquired taste, or something that divides opinion, like, say, Elon Musk or Nigel Farage or morris dancing.

Buffoon vase with flower

In a neat bringing-together of various themes in this blog (fish, ceramics, rivers), a recent visit to Wales included a fly-fishing lesson with Mr Jones on the banks of the beautiful Dyfi river (unpolluted and very clean, thus salmon and sea trout are happy to swim in it).

Fly-fishing lessons on the Dyfi

The result was a brown trout fished from a smaller river nearby, which was cooked and served to fourteen people on a PAC dish. Thank you Mr J.

Sacrifishal?

A man walks into a fish and chip shop with a happy trout under his arm.
“Excuse me, do you sell fish cakes?” he asks.
The owner replies, “Yes, of course we do”
“Great” the man responds, smiling at his trout, “It’s his birthday.”

With apologies for that old chestnut, farewell and goodbye.

Unhappy trout

Swimming, eating, drinking.

/in , /by

Cala Aigua Xellida

Apologies to those of you expecting the usual image of Ledbury from Bradlow Hill. We’ve been away, you see. A gathering of the clan took place this month in the small town of Tamariu on the Costa Brava. The nearest anyone got to trudging up Bradlow Hill was getting down to Cala Xellida and back, which was done by car anyway – it was a holiday after all. It consisted of swimming early in the morning in this beautiful little bay, consorting with octopuses and watching cormorants diving alongside, or simply floating on your back (like a pale plump starfish on an azure sea) mindful of not brushing up against a sea urchin – one of their sharp needles in a vulnerable spot would spoil the day. I thought the sea urchin was a friend, but it was anemone.

Paracentrotus livides profil. Photo Frédéric Ducarme

The name Tamariu derives from the tamarisk trees along the promenade, which separates the beach from the narrow streets and whitewashed buildings of the town. It was, like most settlements along the Costa Brava, a small fishing village, and fishing boats are still to be seen up on the beach. Nowadays there are a few hotels, along with seafood restaurants, cafes and bars. It is set amongst rugged pine-covered cliffs flanking the sea.

View from the coastal path flanking Tamariu.

A few days beforehand, we had stayed with friends in a small village outside Vic, the ancient capital of the region of Osona. Set among lush green hills, from here you can see in the distance the highest peaks of the Pyrenees that border with France. The main square, where most of the town’s social and cultural life takes place, is a large square area surrounded on all sides by beautiful old buildings, some dating from the late 14th century.

Plaza Mayor, Vic.

Whilst there, a trip uphill to the hermitage of Sant Sebastiá, long abandoned. It stands as a reminder of Albion’s perfidy and of the ongoing struggle for Catalan independence because it was here that the decision was taken to send an emissary to the British, which led to an agreement of support in 1705 during the war of Spanish Succession. Alas, Britain let them down by signing the Treaty of Utrech in 1713. Long story, with little obvious link to ceramics, but complex and interesting. Great views of the valley below.

View of Vic valley from Sant Sebastiá.

Catalans and ceramics? Yes. The best-known source of pottery is La Bisbal which has been producing pots for centuries, and uses the typical blue, red and yellow tones associated with it in the numerous artisan studios along the town’s main drag. But pottery here is also associated with the great names of Catalan art: Gaudí, Miró, Dalí and, though born in Malaga, Picasso.

Ceramic seating in Parc Guell – Antoni Gaudí

Of the four, Gaudí did not actually make any ceramics, rather he smashed them up and incorporated it into his facades and rounded architecture, as can be seen on the benches in Parc Guell where one can sit and look down on the city of Barcelona.

Suite Catalan – Salvador Dalí

In 1976 Dali was seeking a buyer for a collection of tiles known as the Suite Catalan that he had produced in Spain two decades previously. From the original run of 100,000 tiles 60,000 remained. A German lawyer bought them all. The remaining tiles from the original run have sold in private sales and auctions over the years, fetching as much as $2,300 for a set of six, and over €500 for just one.

Earthenware dish with bird – Picasso

Picasso and Miró are better known than the other two for their ceramic work and made extraordinary pieces which nowadays are seen in museums around the world. Picasso moved to Barcelona with his family at 13, in 1895, when the city was full of political and artistic ferment. It was politics that turned his visits to Paris into permanent French exile, but before that, his artistic early artistic formation developed in Barcelona. His Blue Period is Catalan.

Oiseau (Solar) bird – Fundació Joan Miró

Peter Arscott Ceramics would like to emulate them one day and, in a fit of creativity, inspiration has nudged this piece out of the studio.

Doodle vase by PAC

These few days on the Mediterranean were not only about swimming, eating, and drinking. Oh no. There was a quick cultural visit to Gerona.  We wanted to see the cathedral’s interior, which includes the widest Gothic nave in the world, with a width of 23 metres (75 ft), and the second widest of any church after that of St Peter’s Basilica. When we finally made it, the huge West door was being shut to visitors by a stern-faced porter.

Closing time at Gerona cathedral

Defeated in our cultural pursuits, we could only drown our sorrows with more food and drink. Here is a picture of tapas: anchovies and olives.

Tapas

In deference to the octopus we met daily at Aigua Xellida (there may have been two, but if so, they were hard to tell apart; they were i-tentacle), we tried not to eat any cephalopods. But we did eat fish, and many sausages along with barbecued red peppers and aubergines, and a lot of cheese and ham eaten on local bread rubbed with tomato. And more sausages. They know their food, those Catalans.

Salchichón de Vic

Back home, and the call of the clay was loud and enticing, tempting hands into making new shapes and forms, and perhaps influenced by the happy use of colour in the pots and dishes seen in La Bisbal, an orange-red tone crept into one of the more devilish vases that popped out of the kiln today.

Imp vase

Enjoy the rest of Summer.

Adeus, Astrud.

/in , /by

In what has become customary in this blog, I was yet again talking to a fruit the other day – this time an avocado. And, yes, it IS a fruit. They are considered so because they fit all of the botanical criteria for a berry. They have a fleshy pulp and a seed. This particular avocado was in mourning over the passing away of one of its fellow South Americans, the dreamy-voiced bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto.

What has bossa nova got to do with ceramics? Not much. It’s just that her voice, for those of us who were around then, played such a defining part of the mid-sixties. At the time of her recording of the “Girl from Ipanema”, although she had little time to prepare (she had never sung professionally before), her detached but sultry vocals perfectly captured the spirit of a “tall and tan and young and lovely” girl who turns the heads of everyone she passes. Her husband, the guitarist Joao Gilberto, was recording with the jazz saxophonist Stan Getz when they decided they needed someone to sing the song in English, and since Joao spoke not a word, she volunteered.

Astrud Gilberto – Kroon, Ron / Anefo photo

She wasn’t credited on the track (which was released under the name Stan Getz and João Gilberto) and she only received the standard $120 session fee for her performance, whereas Stan went on to buy a 23-bed mansion outside New York. But her career took off and she sang with the likes of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra, George Michael, and Chet Baker. We like listening to her cool-as-a-cucumber, slightly diffident voice here in the studio – her singing entwining with Stan Getz’s smooth saxophone calms the atmosphere. Adeus, Astrud. Click here to hear her sing How Insensitive (Insensatez)– she is slightly hesitant, even insecure, in her delivery, probably because of her limited English, but it makes the song all the sadder.

Avocados (persea americana) are popular with ceramicists who enjoy playing with the colours and the shape to create bowls for tableware, and it was the hippest shade of green for your ceramic bathrooms in the 1970s.

Something else that is becoming popular with some ceramicists is the Japanese art of Kintsugi (Golden joinery), whereby broken pottery is mended with lacquer dusted with powdered gold or silver, treating the breakage as part of the history of an object, rather than disguising it. Nowadays potters can buy tubes of ready-made golden glue that hardens at 300F, and no doubt many have pounced on it as a way of salvaging work that might still be sellable.

Kintsugi hoot vase. Notice the vertical golden crack in the green/blue area.

Yours truly is no exception, and the large piece that cracked in the kiln as described in May’s blog was brought out and repaired. However, there were too many cracks to make it watertight, and though it looks good with its golden fissure unashamedly exhibited to all eyes, it sounds dull when you tap the vase with your knuckles. A horrible sound to all potters, and a death knell to a pot. It certainly can’t be sold and will probably live outside in the garden where it might scare away the mice, though the resident barn owl might get confused. I think I will call it Astrud, which means “energetic, courageous and determined”. I made another similar one, which came out of the kiln in perfect condition.

“Call of the Nightingale recorded over eighty-six seconds” 145 x 180 cms. Nicky Arscott 2023.

Owls are not the only nocturnal birds, of course. So is the nightingale, which sings its heart out in the dead of night to attract passing females migrating back to Britain. Last year I told you about our midnight walk with Sam Lee in a wood near Gloucester and I remember him telling us that if you hear one still singing at the end of Spring, that means he didn’t get the girl and he’ll be a summer bachelor. Sam will be reading from his book “Nightingale” and singing (he is a Mercury award-winning singer) at the Ledbury Poetry Festival on Sunday 2 July, so if you’d like to buy a ticket please click here.

Detail of “Nightingale..” by Nicky Arscott.

I am sure I’ve told you before that all the PAC pieces are stoneware, and that they are glaze-fired to 1200°C. Until now, every piece is dipped in a tub of liquid glaze, or, if too big, has the glaze poured over it. This means you don’t get uniform coverage but inevitable thicker and thinner areas of glaze on the surfaces – which is attractive and accentuates the “handmade” aspect of production.

However, using an air compressor and a recently purchased spray gun, goggles, a mask, and a rickety spray booth made out of a large cardboard box on an abandoned garden table, and finally a coverall that was disappointingly tight around middle, two pieces were glaze-sprayed and came out of the kiln with a lovely sheen. Breathing in glaze is strictly to be avoided, you see – thus all the safety preliminaries.

nice sheen

All this is just another example of how far we go to make things pleasing to others. It’s only a few steps away from exerting a pull by creating something irresistible and beautiful like the nightingale desperately attracting a mate, or Astrud singing about regret, or even an owl hooting in the night. Even potters do it, albeit subliminally.

two hoots