Posts

Organ Recital

/10 Comments/in , /by

The climb up the hill to Bradlow Knoll is without doubt an accurate indicator of the ageing process – calves are sorer, backs stiffer, breathing shallower and heart more flabbergasted than ever. Why are you doing this? it shouts. Sit down on the grass and breath slowly, you’re no spring chicken, or mountain goat. A bit more respect if you want me to go on pumping as I have these last 71 years! The problem is that one gets easily sidetracked if talking to one’s organs, and the heart is always the one that complains about things. I find conversations with my brain a lot more rewarding, my liver is slightly anxious and prone to melancholy, my lungs are no-nonsense and direct and perhaps lacking in humour. The stomach (my third favourite organ) is emotional but also stoical.

Anyway, half way up the hill, a moment to catch one’s breath was necessary, and as it was early in the morning on the first day of the new year, the fields and woods were very quiet, so that when a raven croaked overhead and landed about 20 yards away from the hedge I was sitting by, it was unaware of me (despite my pink jumper) and I could watch its corvine hopping from one patch to another, on the lookout for grubs, beetles or whatever. They are among the smartest of birds, with intelligence comparable to that of apes, and experiments have shown they are able to problem solve, use tools, plan ahead and even hold a grudge – a bit like us, in other words.

They are surprisingly large birds – the closest most people get to one is in the Tower of London where they are kept because it is said that the kingdom and the Tower will fall if the six resident ravens ever leave the fortress. These are fed twice a day by a Raven Master and dine on a special diet of mice, chicks, rats and assorted raw meats. As a special treat, they are given biscuits soaked in blood. But this one on Bradlow Hill had to work for its food, tugging and pecking between the tussocks of grass. Unfortunately, my mobile pinged as a message came through and the bird looked up and immediately flapped off towards the wood. The message was from the electricity company encouraging me to have a smart meter put in.

The rest of the journey to the top was uneventful, with the reward of sitting on CJ’s bench and soaking in the view with its manmade patchwork of fields and meadows in the distance, and with the time to consider the subtle differences in the shades of green available to walkers in the countryside – all presumably dependent on the type of grass or crop growing, chlorophyll concentrations, soil conditions, moisture levels, or fatigue or eye strain after spending too much time looking at screens (after which everything seems to have a green tint to it).

All of which brings us to ceramics and the use of green. At Peter Arscott Ceramics (PAC) the colour is rarely used by itself and seems to only work well in conjunction with another colour alongside. As you know from previous blogs, having green alongside red is very vibrant because they are complementary, or opposites on the chromatic wheel (as are blue and orange, yellow and violet). The greens we use are eider green, chromium oxide, chartreuse green and goosander green, usually combined with off red or brown stains, as in the image above, or next to a red that has been mixed with tin oxide to reduce any sharp contrast, as in the image below…….

…. or else the green itself is mixed with a little black to reduce its vibrancy, as in the image below ….

….or the overall red is no longer doing battle with the green because the green in question pulls towards yellow, as with the chartreuse green polka dots in the image below.

As with all colours, green has many associations, from nature and the environment, growth and renewal, health and healing and lots more. But let’s keep a sensible balance here and also acknowledge envy and jealousy, sickness, parrots, slime, and leprechauns. And that the former flag of Libya (1977–2011) was the only flag in the world with a single colour (green) and no design or details.

I’ve digressed. Back to ceramics: greenware is unfired clay. It’s the state in which the piece you have thrown or slab-rolled into shape sits under wraps while it dries. I use large plastic bags over them to slow down the drying process – too quick and the clay will crack. And thinner parts dry faster than thicker ones, so sometimes one has to spray with water to help the whole piece dry as uniformly as possible. This is one of the many reasons ceramicists get nervous before opening up the kiln after a firing and end up having angry conversations with their spleens when things go wrong, as in the image below.

Another kiln katastrophe

Interestingly, greenware is also the term for software distributed under the condition that the user does something to help the environment. The author expects the user to do something “green”. For example: planting a tree, eating more vegetables, or quitting smoking.

ceramic vase with decorative holes

Holey vase – this one came out intact

Quitting smoking? That sounds like a New Year’s resolution, though it turns out that of the 40% or so making resolutions every year, only 25% remain committed after a month. Worse still, less than 10% end up accomplishing them at all. Most of us actually throw in the towel in the first few weeks of January. As a result, the second Friday in January is now often called Quitters’ Day.

Kinglet vase

Nonetheless, the team at PAC (Ziggy, Spyro, Shimpo and Yours Truly) have together decided that we will:

Embrace our flaws and imperfections

Book a night under the stars

Surround ourselves with positive influences

Let go of grudges and practice forgiveness (Shimpo)

Resolve conflicts calmly and openly

Not talk when mouth full of spiders (Ziggy)

Learn a musical instrument

Trim nose and ear hair (Spyro)

Reports on progress will be made publicly in future blogs.

small black and white construct

We hope you have a happy 2026, and that it is everything you want it to be.

Goodbye 2023

/in /by

Possibly because it was a cold, grey, miserable day, my walk up Bradlow Hill and into Frith Wood was a lonely one. Not a single walker passed by, nor did I even see a squirrel, and there was no birdsong, except for the distant cawing of the resident raven. It was an unusually silent trudge along the woodland track, the whole atmosphere was brooding, possibly reinforced by the inactivity in the ceramics studio due to delays in connecting the new kiln – creative juices with no outlet can make a person very gloomy – and by the realization that the familiar whiff in our sitting room indicates a dead rat in the skirting boards. The smell is faint now, but building up to its peak for Christmas day.

Crouch vase at Cecilia Colman Gallery, London

Feeling uninspired, I turned a rock over with my foot to find what I expected to see: bugs scuttling away, mainly woodlice. “Aha!” I thought to myself, “here are the true companions of my walk today.” Just because they are not visible and make no sound does not mean they should not be respected as denizens of the wood, as much as the charismatic squirrels, foxes and birds, who have not bothered to make their presence felt; lethargic, pampered and entitled as they lie in their nests, dreys, lairs and setts for the day.

In praise of the woodlouse, the species is found across the UK in almost any habitat. They are flat, oval and grey with a thick exoskeleton and have seven body segments, each with a pair of legs. They are actually crustaceans, related to shrimps and crabs. Like their aquatic relatives they easily dry out, which is why they hide away in cool, damp places during the day and come out at night. To recycle copper in their diet (as their blood is copper based like all marine crustaceans) they eat their own poo, but they also munch away at decaying wood, leaf litter, fungi, fruit, dead animals, as well as other animals’ poo. By the way, eating your own poo is not recommended – do not do it at home.

Granny grunter

If you collect a few woodlice and keep them in a jar, try sniffing it after a while. They excrete ammonia through their exoskeletons, so it’s unpleasant, which is why they are called ‘stinky pigs’ in parts of the UK. They are also known as ‘chiggy pig’ (Devon), ‘gramersow’ (Cornwall), ‘sow bug’ and ‘woodpig’.

Flower vase at Cecilia Colman Gallery

They have 250 recorded names in the UK, including Billy Baker, Monkey pea, Parson’s pig, Cheese log, Daddy granfer, Granny grunter, Damper, Slate cutter, Hardy back, Penny sow, Cheesy bug and Nut bug. Probably names given by children, who are after all the ones closest to these things that crawl around on the ground, it’s children who find them under stones and under sticks, and who play with them.

Segment vase at Cecilia Colman Gallery, London

One insect I did not see was the mythical caterpillar, a beast so rare that only my granddaughter knows about it. It is half caterpillar and half cat – notice the sharp claws at the end of its many feet, the long tail and the feline head.

Cat/erpillar. Erin Arscott Richards

In an effort to be as fair as possible about bugs in general, I include images of two studio residents, a spider and a slug. Both are ceramic portraits, the spider a very accurate one of Ziggy, who as regular readers of this blog know, is in charge of fly-catching in the studio.

Ceramic portrait of Ziggy

Vases have been made in the studio, but they are not even bisque fired yet, until the new kiln is set up. Until then, pieces are available at various outlets, the most recent delivery being at the Cecilia Colman Gallery in London, where you can see the ceramics displayed here on the blog (At last, says Spiro, at least a gesture towards marketing).

Sam Slug

We wish you all a happy Christmas and a prosperous 2024. Here’s hoping it’s a better year for humanity than ’23. Celebrate properly, don’t waste time making mulled wine and other aberrations, go for the classic Dry Martini: Put your martini glass in the freezer, pour a good gin into a shaker, add a drop of Dry Vermouth (only a drop!) and put it in the freezer. After at least 3 hours you can take it out and pour it into the frozen glass and add an olive. The first sip is the best, hold it by the stem so your fingers won’t warm it up. Here endeth the lesson.

Blue dot vase at Cecilia Colman Gallery

A man and his pet slug walk into a bar. They start drinking beer, then as the night goes on they move to cocktails, and then to brandy.  Finally, the bartender says: “Last orders.” So, the man says, “One more for me… and one more for my slug.” The bartender sets them up and they gulp them down. Suddenly the slug falls over dead. The man puts on his coat and starts to leave. The bartender says angrily: “Hey, you can’t just leave that lyin’ there.” The man replies: “That’s not a lion, that’s a slug.

Cheers, and a Happy 2024

Kiln Kat Kalamity

/in , /by

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

the remains of the clay

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

exploding pussy

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

Corroded terminals

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

Bottomless cat

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

Ottio and Potto

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

Moche pampas cat, 7 – 11th century AD

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

Potto

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

Porcello scaber

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

Large stoneware platter 38 cms diam – The Chuffed Store

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

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

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

Spiro, Thelonious and Ziggy wish you a Happy Christmas

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