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Someone to watch over me

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Do you ever get that feeling that someone is behind you, staring? A sort of ghostly or alien presence nearby, that you slowly become aware of and makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and your spine tingle? This happens at the studio very now and then, and probably as a result of the loneliness of the long-distance potter (see blog May), but more likely the result of having a ceramic custodian placed in the workshop high on a shelf, and then forgetting that it is there.

Norma

Our custodian is called Norma. She is imperiously “above it all”, dispassionate and detached, somewhat poker-faced, but commanding and reassuring as she protects the studio from any malevolent spirits. She is not a conversationalist. St Spyridon, or Spiro as we call him, the patron saint of potters, is no good at warding off the malignant because he is too busy with the marketing, and in any case considers such practices as beneath his dignity. However, unlike Norma, he does like to chat.

Frank

It’s natural to assume someone behind us is staring, but I think that feeling we get is a self-fulfilling because when we turn around, our action makes the other person look at us, and when they meet our eyes, they give us the impression that they’ve been staring the whole time. Norma – she is inscrutably mute and thus easily forgotten, until, for no particular reason, you become aware of her presence.

Hugo

In the garden, once Spring arrives and everything starts growing and covering every inch of space with leaves, blossom, buds, stalks, and branches, you forget what was standing visibly throughout the bare Winter months. Indulging in a bit of pruning, you uncover a patch that reveals an old garden sentinel that stares back at you – something familiar that takes you by surprise. In this case Hugo and Frank, who are stylised skulls made as part of a mural commissioned years ago and who were rejected on account of flaws detected – cracks, I think. They still look at one forlornly, even accusingly.

Forsaken

In fact, the garden is full of forsaken ceramics. They peek out at me or make sarcastic comments as I go by: “Call yourself a potter? Didn’t you know that stoneware contains (among other silicates) feldspar, and that this majestic mineral is by far the most abundant in the Earth’s crust, making up about 50% of all rocks? I contain eternity, I’m as old as the planet, and yet…and yet…you cast me out and abandon me in this squalor, surrounded by weeds, mud and (ugh) ants that crawl over me. Have you no respect?”

Forlorn

Tables, on the other hand, being made of wood, suffer from no illusions and stand squarely on the earth’s surface, four-legged and robust, and in the case of these two that are now at the Palais des Vaches, looking quite elegant. Their hand-painted tops are varnished with a heat-resistant resin, so that hot cups of tea or coffee can be placed on them directly without the need for a coaster. Their tapering “sputnik” legs give them a fifties look.

Fifties vibe – handmade table at the Palais des Vaches

These tables are not for the outdoors, but for the house. And in the house, we have another sentinel that watches over us. He is tucked up in a corner of the kitchen ceiling and has been there uncomplaining for over thirty years, though he has been with the family for forty.  Three-fingered and four-toed, he is made of plaster and is named Garrel because the kids could not pronounce the word “gargoyle”, though strictly speaking gargoyles are meant to stand on roofs and act as waterspouts, as well as warding off evil spirits.

Garrel

Derivation of the word “gargoyle”? From Middle English: from Old French gargouille ‘throat’, also ‘gargoyle’ (because of the water passing through the throat and mouth of the figure); related to Greek gargarizein ‘to gargle’ (imitating the sounds made in the throat).

Jug vase

Spiro says that’s enough wittering on my part and reminds me that this is a ceramics blog, not some etymology lesson, and that I should at least show something recently made. So here it is – above is a large stoneware vase that looks like a jug from a certain angle. And here’s another table…

Do you want to listen to the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald singing Gershwin’s “Someone to watch over me“? Click here.

There’s a somebody I’m longin’ to seeI hope that he turns out to beSomeone who’ll watch over me

Sorry, I couldn’t resist this one:

A man goes into a bar with his small pet newt called Tiny. “A pint for me and a half for Tiny, please,” he says to the landlord.
The landlord asks, “Why do you name him Tiny?”
The man replies, “Because he’s my newt.”

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.

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The jumble vases of Mud Month

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panoramic view from Bradlow Knoll

Apologies for the brevity of this month’s blog, which like the month of February itself, seems shorter than others and lacking a defined personality. Unfair really. After all, had it retained its original Old English name of Kale-monath it would be forever associated with brassica as Cabbage Month, which we can assume was the daily culinary highlight for the medieval English but must have been an off-putting addition to the domestic winter fug within.

muddy path

The other Old English name was Solmonath, which literally means “mud month.” Whichever way you look at it, February does not come out smelling of roses, until the Romans arrived and thankfully renamed it . So, thank you Romans. They named it after the festival of purification called Februa, during which people were ritually washed.

jumble vase

Three facts about February: in Welsh, February is sometimes known as “y mis bach” which means “little month.” It  is the only month where it’s possible to go the entire time without having a full moon.  February frequently occurs in lists of the most commonly misspelt words in the English language

dinosaur legs

However, Frith Wood. It was a cold day, as you can probably tell by the images, and my powers of observation were subdued. The only thing that drew me out of my reverie was the appearance of two giant dinosaur legs wearing green socks. The “green socks” of moss around the two tree trunks struck me as strange. The moss seems to only grow to a certain height before it applies the brakes and comes to a dead halt: “this far and no more”. Possible explanation? The air within 60 centimetres of the ground is moist because water is constantly evaporating from the ground, so moss, lazy like everybody else, just hunkers down and laps it up. Anybody with a better or more scientific explanation please tell us.

another jumble vase

So, to ceramics (about time, says Spiro). Two larger-than-usual vases came out of the kiln this month, and they do look different. They are part of a series called “jumble vases”, made from stoneware slab-rolled and cut into different shapes which are then applied to each other in such a way that the final piece looks as if it’s made from five or six different vases.

jumble vase showing its decals

After the piece is bisque-fired, each “fragment” is hand painted, then the whole piece is dipped in transparent glaze and fired at the usual 1275 degrees. When it comes out, the areas that have been deliberately left blank then have decals applied. These are fine transparent designs which are soaked in water then carefully placed on the glazed surface. Then the vase goes back into the kiln and fired to 800 degrees.

jumble vase 2

They are sculptural, visually arresting, but also practical, since you can fill them with water and put plants (or other things) in them.

things to put in a jumble vase

Lastly, if you’ve ever heard of flash-fiction (a self-contained story under six hundred words, in this case) and you are interested enough, you can read one of my stories at 365 Tomorrows by clicking here. They are an online site publishing science fiction in all its incarnations, from hard sci-fi to cyberpunk and beyond.

cyberpunk (benign)

Spring is around the corner, snowdrops have appeared, crocuses are out, next the daffs, and then it’s Summer. Antio sas, as Spiro the Greek says.

crocus sativus

abstract painting on canvas

Batten down the hatches

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With Covid 19 swirling around, we are all having to prepare for a difficult situation, in different ways, and with varying consequences – I’m thinking in particular of the galleries and staff that exhibit my ceramics and who are facing a bleak few months, and of all those involved in the leisure, culture and retail industries. But we are all in the same boat.

ruminant from Rouen made in 1882

“Battening down the hatches” means to fasten the entrances to the lower part of a ship using wooden boards. When bad weather was imminent, the hatches were covered with tarpaulin and the covering was edged with wooden strips, or battens, to prevent it from blowing off. Sailors called this ‘battening down’.

There in the wood a Piggiwig stood with a ring at the end of his nose (Paul A. aged 9)

But I confess I am no sailor. My priorities include getting the essentials into the Covid Cupboard (red wine, beans, caviar) in readiness for any eventuality. However,  it may be that after 2 or 3 months we will be over the worst of it, and though it could be a distressing period  it is also an opportunity for all of us to do those things we have kept postponing year after year. Perhaps it is time you sat down and read all of Dickens, or took up knitting or the harmonica, or both. Ever thought of perfecting your stone skipping, or tapping maple trees, or inventing a cocktail?

How about downloading a birdsong app and learning the tunes of every garden songster in the UK so that when we are released from any lockdown  we can burst into the countryside, the parks and gardens, with a new and receptive vigour? The robin, in my opinion, turns out to be a surprisingly refined singer – click here.

the Trini Lopez of the bird world – photo: Zhang Xiaoling

The obvious suggestion from a ceramicist is that you should try your hand, if you haven’t already, at making something out of clay, but I know most people cannot afford and do not have the room for a wheel or a kiln, which is why at this point I would have promoted a visit to a ceramics community project such as CUP in Hereford. Alas, for obvious reasons, it is closed until further notice but will reopen with the “all clear” and with great fanfare. Keep an eye on its website for updates – there is nothing to stop you buying a bag of earthenware clay to play with at home, specially with kids, who love it.

Dalek – by Paul A. (aged 9)

And children, and adults, love it because clay appeals to basic impulses, the pleasure of building form or shape-making,  – a base material, malleable, sensuous.  The hand is everywhere – pulling, thumping, pinching, squishing, rolling, painting, – playfulness which, once harnessed to technique, leads to objects being made and to a whole world to explore. Very satisfying. Look at the individually expressed  interpretations of animals made by different people of different ages and backgrounds

Waving vase – stoneware

Once you have made your cups, bowls, animals, Elvis Presley figurines, and they have dried, you might consider joining CUP and learn how to blunge, dunt, engobe, frit, pug, slip and wedge.  Potters are the only people, other than children, who play with mud.

This why they seem so earthed and so calm.

Dear readers, pottery is good for you: it is a creative outlet, it reduces stress, exercises the hand and wrist, encourages sociability and generally improves your quality of life.

ochre vase with black lines – stoneware

I hope to be delivering new pieces to the various galleries who sell my work, though that trip has been postponed until further notice. We are not being encouraged to go out and visit places, so may I suggest you go online and have a look at what they exhibit; it is one way to support them. If you click here it will take you to my web page with their links.

a valuable stash discovered buried in the back garden of a Covid hoarder

For now, things depend on a whole army of issues playing out, and on Saint Spyridon, the patron saint of potters. Daily life will get better and we’ll be back having parties.

Bumblejig will hold a party – acrylic on canvas

The Patron Saint of potters

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Llangollen

It must have been hard for Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby living in Plas Newydd, a stone built house converted into a gothic ‘fantasy’, since all they wanted was to be left alone after running away from their families and setting up home in Wales in 1778. They lived there for 50 years but became such objects of curiosity that they often had to politely receive visitors.

“Who is it at the door this time, Sarah?”

“Oh, it’s the Duke of Wellington again. Shall I show him in?”

And so on and so forth: Wordsworth, Shelley, Sir Walter Scott, Josiah Wedgewood, Byron all beat a path to the heavily ornamented Gothic door of their remote “Cottage.”

the two ladies of Llangollen

I, however, was on another mission linked more to the great Josiah Wedgewood than cultural curiosity, because I was delivering some pieces to Gwalia Ceramics in the heart of Llangollen and discovering that ‘The Ladies of Llangollen’ must have been attracted to the area by the beautiful Welsh hills, the fast running River Dee and the woodlands that surround the town.

Gwalia Ceramics

How to pronounce Llangollen: [LAN] + [GOTH] + [LUHN]. Or click here to hear it pronounced.

big Klee vase

The Gwalia Ceramics is a jewel of a gallery run by Jacqui Atkin, herself a very fine ceramicist and potter, as well as editor of Clay Craft magazine. Any visitor would enjoy dropping in – it is a small space but the ceramics are beautifully displayed. Wedgewood would have loved it because even though he is credited with the industrialisation of the manufacture of pottery, it was the beauty of ware such as the Portland vase that spurred him to innovate.

loop vase

And Llangollen is a place with an easy charm that invites walking about and exploring.
The Ellesmere Canal runs along the Dee here and it is unusual amongst Britain’s artificial waterways in having a strong flow (up to 2 miles per hour). The route, twisting through hills and across the Dee Valley, has made it the most famous and busiest in Britain. The canal is an important part of Llangollen’s attraction as a holiday destination. A marina, built at the end of the navigable section, allows summer visitors to moor overnight in Llangollen. I mention this in case any of you decide to visit by boat.

another vase

You can get there by train, changing in Liverpool, and then getting a bus, alighting at the Llangollen Memorial. And for steam enthusiasts, there is the Llangollen steam railway located beside the Dee Bridge. The journey is a relaxing 10 miles travelling through the stunning Dee Valley to the lovely town of Corwen the crossroads of North Wales. This small section of line, which in its day went from Ruabon to Barmouth taking people to the seaside on holiday and transporting various goods including slate and chemicals, follows the River Dee for its entire length, passing through some of the finest natural beauty North Wales has to offer.

torrential Dee

The bridge over the Dee is 16th century and gives you a dramatic view of the torrents below (it was a particularly wet and rainy day), and the High Street has enough good coffee shops for a break. I discovered a seriously good pastry shop selling something I have not come across before: Yorkshire Wraps. This is essentially a large circular Yorkshire pudding with raised edges which is then filled with a delicious thick meaty stew – not very Welsh, I agree, but somehow it did not matter, and it means I can slip in the one about the man from Barnsley who goes to the vet. Vet says:
“I hear you’ve got problems with the cat?”
“Aye” the man replies
“Is it a tom?”
“No,” replies the man, “I brought it wi’ me!”

Yorkshire wrap

Llangollen was established in the 7th Century when the monk St. Collen was instructed to find a valley by riding a horse for one day and then stop and mark out a “parish” a place to build his hermitage. This got me thinking about saints and I realized I had no idea who the Patron saint of potters is.

St Spyridon

Well, it is St Spyridon. He converted a pagan by using a piece of broken pottery to illustrate how one single entity could be composed of three unique entities (fire, water and clay); a metaphor for the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. As soon as Spyridon finished speaking, the shard is said to have miraculously burst into flame, water dripped on the ground, and only dust remained in his hand. So, good man though he undoubtedly is, it is probably best not to lure him into the Gwalia gallery

Arscott Ceramics goes pannaging

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Lord Lyons

“If you’re given champagne at lunch, there’s a catch somewhere”, said one of the great diplomats of 19th century Britain, Lord Lyons, a man who loved gastronomy and agreed with Palmerston’s remark that ‘dining is the soul of diplomacy’, and offered at least five courses of Moet & Chandon champagne at his diplomatic dinners because he found that, as ambassador to the United States, it made senators more accommodating.

Lymington

Lyons was born in the coastal town of Lymington, which is where Arscott Ceramics was heading with a delivery for the Coastal Gallery. It turns out that it is also the birthplace of  Ben Ainslie, Britain’s foremost competitive sailor, and the singer Birdy. The things one learns.

Landscape vase

To get to Lymington one has to drive through the New Forest, one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pastureland, heathland and forest in Southern England and proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror way back in the 11th century.

Vase 3

Pre-existing rights of common pasture are still recognised today and are enforced by official verderers, and Commoners’ cattle, ponies and donkeys roam throughout the open heath and much of the woodland. It is largely their grazing that maintains the open character of the Forest. They are also frequently seen straying into the Forest villages, shops and pubs (horse walks into a bar. “Hey!” says the bartender, “You read my mind” says the horse). The New Forest pony is one of the indigenous horse breeds of the British Isles and most of the Forest ponies are of this breed, but there are also some Shetlands and their crossbreeds.

Brusher Mills

It remains a habitat for many rare birds and mammals. All three British native species of snake inhabit the Forest. The adder, the grass snake and the rare smooth snake. It was mainly adders which were caught by Brusher Mills (1840–1905), the “New Forest Snake Catcher”. He caught many thousands in his lifetime, sending some to London Zoo as food for their animals. You can see Brusher’s grave in St Nicholas’ Church, Brockenhurst, where villagers paid for a marble headstone to mark his final resting place. It does not say how he died.

salt marshes outside Lymington – Isle of Wight on horizon

A quick watercolour of the salt marshes outside Lymington was affected by blustery winds blowing the easel down and by an irrational awareness of the possibility of any three of these species of snake having an opinion on landscape art – all British snakes are now legally protected, and so the New Forest snakes are no longer caught and it logically follows that there must be many more of them lurking in bushes nowadays.

porcus beatus

One or two of the ceramic pieces rattled around in their boxes as the car suddenly braked to avoid running over a pig. Yes, a pig. In fact there were various small porkers rooting around on the edge of the road and it turns out that it is not an uncommon sight to see pigs roaming in the autumn months. Pannage is the practice of releasing domestic pigs into a forest to eat fallen acorns and other nuts. Acorns are poisonous in large quantities to cattle and ponies and can lead to cholic whereas piggies spit out the toxic skins and enjoy eating the acorns. Pannage: late Middle English: from Old French pasnage, from medieval Latin pastionaticum, from pastio(n- ) ‘pasturing’, from the verb pascere ‘to feed’.

Up to 600 pigs and piglets will work their way through the forest but must be fitted with a ring through their nose which still enables them to forage through leaf litter and surface vegetation but stops them from rooting into the ground with their snouts causing damage to the Forest.

Those of you who have been following this blog since the start will know that pigs are often brought up because of their link to ceramics, and this blog is no exception. Yes, the word “porcelain” is derived from the Italian porcellana which translates as cowrie shell and refers to porcelain’s similarly smooth surface. Porcella means little pig, which describes the small plump shape of the cowrie.

Klee vase

Which is the point of this blog, of course, to tell you about Arscott Ceramics and what is new. The stoneware pieces seen in these images can all be inspected at the Coastal Gallery in Lymington, a small but wonderful gallery run by Stewart and Bev. Do pay them a visit and combine the experience with a walk into town, perhaps a dip in the Sea Water Baths (the oldest lido in the country) and, to recover, a stiff drink at the quayside where you can sit and gaze across the harbour at the UK’s most expensive coastal real estate, Sandbanks. Finish it off with a slow drive through the New Forest.

Man walks into a bar with a pig under his arms.

“Where did you get that disgusting creature?” asks the barman.

“I won him in a raffle” replies the pig.

loop bottle

Peter Arscott Ceramics in Ledbury (part 1)

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pink ochre vase grogged stoneware

These blogs usually spring from the places and galleries where Peter Arscott ceramics can be seen, places like Worcester, Brighton, London and Cambridge, and despite all this geographical weaving around, until now the actual heart and home of production has never been properly introduced to you: Ledbury, where you can also now see some of the recently made ceramics displayed at John Nash’s in the town centre.

C vase at John Nash

It’s a market town with the ingredients to make its High Street attractive to the eye: a curving length, a slight dip in the middle and buildings on either side that are as tall as the street is wide. Founded in 1123, it has inevitably changed a great deal since then, though the ground plan in Bishop Capella’s rent book shows that it still is the same essential High Street made up of burgages, strips of land 200 ft long and 20ft wide with house frontages onto the street and access via alleyways to the rear where animals were kept. Hard to believe when you look at the shop fronts today; the cafes, pubs, grocers and bookshops hide what is still there – a medieval layout.

Ledbury High St

A saunter down Church Lane and its carefully laid (small) cobbles is a pleasant experience but over a century ago you would have had to deal with petrified kidneys, large sea-worn flint lumps used for paving which caused terrible problems for clog-wearing Ledburians. Today anybody seen having problems walking down Church Lane might well be a local coming out of a pub late at night.

blue scoop bowl

Water used to run down the centre of Church Lane from the hill above town, Dog Hill Wood, and the lake in the grounds of Upper Hall, and gather in the dip in front of the old library, the Barrett Browning Institute, where detritus from nearby tanneries and blood from the Butchers’ Row, a row of 15 shops which originally stood in the middle of the High Street, mingled. The effluvia was blamed for the outbreak of typhoid in 1826 and eventually led to their dismantling after prolonged resistance from the occupants.

whistle, don’t thigh

One shop was saved and rebuilt behind what is now Boots, and later transferred to its present location outside the Burgage Hall – it’s a museum of curiosities: a hurdy-gurdy, pots, breastplates and a Tibetan flute fashioned from a human thigh bone; the femur of a criminal or a person who died a violent death is preferred. Alternatively, the femur of a respected teacher may be used, though I do hope none of the kids from John Masefield High School gets the wrong idea.

entrance to John Nash Interiors

Next door to the alley entrance is John Nash Interiors, contemporary and period interior design, who are showing various Peter Arscott ceramic pieces with the launch of a new collection of furniture by Andrew Martin.

three legged bowl

The Andrew Martin Interior Designer of the Year Award celebrates the best of design from around the world. Designers from all six continents take part. Every year, a panel of celebrity judges, are charged with the fiendish task of selecting one overall winner. One of this year’s judges was Elizabeth Hurley of this parish (the winner was Ohara Davies-Gaetano Interiors).

retro charger

Do drop in anytime, perhaps combining it with a visit to the Ledbury Gallery next door, and a coffee at one of the town’s seven fine cafes. If you have any time left, nip into St Michaels Church and greet the medieval being halfway up one of the pillars near the choir: the stone Manticore. It has the head of a human, body of a lion and a tail. It eats its victims whole, using its triple rows of teeth, and leaves no bones behind. The Ledbury Manticore, however, looks rather baleful, so just say “hello” and move on.

…………… (to be continued)

sad, sad Manticore

ceramics, olives, squirrels

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the view from Úbeda towards the Sierra de Cazorla

A long time ago, arriving anywhere in Spain meant being greeted by the smell of tobacco and coffee. Nowadays, with smoking restrictions in place, it is just the coffee you can just about whiff as you get out of Málaga airport and walk into the dry heat of Andalucía. The drive from Málaga to our destination, the city of Úbeda in Jaén, was a trip through a dry but varied landscape of mountains, valleys and great stretches of olive groves as far as the eye can see. This is the region that produces the most olive oil in the world, alone producing more than the second world producer of oil, Italy. Something like 20% of world production comes from here. There are about 60 million olive trees in this fertile land, and a squirrel could travel happily across the whole province without once touching soil (they claim). Anyway, the photograph above was taken from the hill of Úbeda looking down and across towards the Sierra de Cazorla. The next image is of a squirrel.

The cultivation of olive trees goes back centuries in the different Mediterranean cultures, and includes the Greek, the Phoenician and the Assyrian – even the Bible mentions it over 400 times, since it was used not only as food but as a light source. Of course, the oil had to be stored, and what better way to contain it than the ceramic amphora or jug.

amphora jug of oil, aren’t you?

olives in a three-legged bowl

In Spanish a potter is known as an alfarero, a word that comes from the Arabic “alfahar” meaning “ceramic” and “ero” denoting a profession, and without doubt the best known alfarero in Úbeda is Tito. And pottery has been made in Ubeda for over a thousand years; there have been many influences and styles that have left their mark, and at Tito’s ceramic workshop you can experience absolute fidelity to traditional forms as well as a decorative eclecticism that incorporates and recreates the contributions of each historical period, from Iberian geometries to colourful Baroque via Arab greens and the blues of the Renaissance.

Inside Tito’s workshop

From the cool oasis of Tito’s you can walk to one of the most striking Renaissance collection of buildings in Spain – the Vázquez de Molina square where you can visit the Palacio de las Cadenas (so named after the decorative chains which once hung from the façade), the chapel of El Salvador and the Basílica de Santa María. The interior of the chapel is stunning, built as a burial place for the local nobility in 1536, it is a Spanish architectural jewel with a main altar that forces one to sit down and contemplate.

interior of El Salvador chapel

The town lends its name to a common figure of speech in Spanish, andar por los cerros de Úbeda (literally ‘to walk around the hills of Úbeda’), meaning ‘to go off at a tangent’, which yours truly did by succumbing to a mild case of shingles. Luckily the local chemist is very helpful so no doctor was required, but it did mean that any consumption of local delicacies such as perdiz en escabeche (partridge), andrajos (a stew made with flour, oil, tomato, pepper and rabbit) and paté de aceituna (olive paté) had to be postponed, as did any drinking of the local Torreperogil wine.

Écija – the Frying Pan of Spain

This small sacrifice was soon forgotten with the next stage of the trip. The drive to Jerez de la Frontera meant a brief stop at Écija, the Frying Pan of Spain, and though it turned out be hot enough, the temperature was not as high as in the UK at the time. Something of the dryness of the Spanish landscape and its underlying human endeavour and activity inspired a set of pots once back at the workshop – an abstract interpretation with a marked personality. What do you think?

landscape pots

However, back on the road, the landscape changed gradually the further West we drove, and by the time we were nearing Jerez the fields were white. Albariza is a chalky soil that retains moisture within while forming a dry pale crust above that prevents any drying. This is ideal for the growing of the Palomino grape used in the production of sherry and brandy. The result is a stripy landscape of green and white, grape and soil.

Barbadillo’s cathedral-like warehouse of soleras

A tour of the Barbadillo sherry makers in the port of Sanlucar de Barrameda taught us that manzanilla is made there whereas fino is made in Jerez. Because of the sea breeze that enters the giant bodegas where the maturing takes place, manzanilla has a slightly salty tang. Manzanilla is camomile, which is another aroma typically found in this type of sherry, and where better to sample some than at a bar in the centre of the city. After admiring the cathedral-like building that houses the hundreds of soleras (oak barrels) of manzanilla we headed back to Jerez.

Bar Juanito

Bar Juanito is a cool and airy space clad inside and out with locally-made ceramic tiles where they serve all the sherries along with their specialities, artichoke and deep-fried whitebait. As with most towns and cities in Andalucía tiles are used to decorate buildings on the outside, such as the tower of the church of San Miguel, and to help keep interiors at a lower temperature, for example in the courtyards and patios of houses, and in public and domestic rooms.

the tile-clad tower of San Miguel, Jerez

But if you are feeling the heat then go to the beach. The one at Santa Maria del Puerto is wide and clean and, despite the fact that it is the Atlantic, easy to swim in. The view across the bay allows you a glimpse of Cadiz in the distance.

Cadiz in the distance

In a further attempt to link ceramics, however tenuously, with this blog and the trip to Spain, here is an image of a large pot made two or three years ago which was inspired by the movements of a flamenco dance. It is called Flamenco Pot.

Flamenco pot

Should you want to meet any of the ceramics face to face, keep in mind that other than the workshop in Ledbury there are outlets too in St Ives, Worcester, Cambridge and London – addresses and contact details on the website. Click here to go to the website.

Leaf pot

Hasta luego, amigos.

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