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array of glazed fine art ceramic bowls by belatrova

Far from the Madding Crowd

September 8th, 2017/in Blog, Latest News /by Peter Arscott

far from the madding crowd

Heat has a strange effect on some humans. When temperatures hit a high, as they did this August in many parts of Europe and the Mediterranean, confusion and dizziness set in, common effects of too much exposure to extreme heat because of increased blood flow to dilated blood vessels and fluid loss through sweating. This sometimes happens to belatrova when the kiln is going full blast and ceramic production is in full flow as we try to feed the insatiable appetite for our products – on the other hand a cold Dry Martini often wards off any lasting effects.

Mallorca inland

This August was an excuse to go abroad for a break before moving into the new workshop in Ledbury (about which more in the next blog).

towards the monastery of Sant Salvador

Mallorca is a beautiful island that has lured many foreigners over the years, from Chopin to Robert Graves, and, this year, belatrova. But mass tourism is affecting it much as it is elsewhere. Barcelona, Venice, Edinburgh, Lisbon, Dubrovnik, Skye are all examples of unmanageable jam-packed destinations filled with visitors on holiday. ” Tourist: your luxury trip / my daily misery“, says a placard in the Parque Guell (Barcelona). “Tourists go home. Refugees welcome” was the graffiti that greeted us as we drove to Felanitx for our week in Mallorca.

tourist

And who can blame residents when all anyone can do on the beautiful beaches and calas is to stand waist-deep in the water surrounded on all sides by others similarly engaged in staring at the horizon with arms folded and wondering how to escape – we did find a great spot though, as you can see from the first image.

tourist with mobile

Go inland and the atmosphere changes and the landscape is an engaging mixture of the agricultural and dramatic, from fertile farmland and Aleppo pine forests to the limestone mountains of the Serra de Tramuntana and the summer flowering of oleander, hibiscus, marigolds and orchids.

away from the tourists

If you really want to get away from any crowds, we recommend a visit to Botanicactus, a cactus sanctuary (though belatrova believes they are quite capable of defending themselves) where the cacti flourish in the dry and sunny climate and the landscape has been specifically designed to protect the plants, with the creation of the artificial lake and raised terraces protecting the plants from the wind. While everyone is at the beach you can wander about in perfect solitude surrounded by these giant prickly beings.

belatrova’s Miró bowl

Among the many artists associated with the island is Joan Miró, painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona, but resident in the latter part of his long life in Palma where he bequeathed a collection that is the basis for his Fundació Joan Miró which we visited one morning.

retro bowl (three legs)

It is a purpose-built exhibition space that uses thinly cut alabaster as a source of light into the rooms and has pools of water outside in the gardens that reflect their own light through low cut openings at floor level – and the whole complex stands on a hill overlooking the bay of Palma. We watched white sails racing each other in the distance, the ferry from Barcelona ploughing its way to the docks, and three giant cruise ships blocking part of the harbour architecture as they disgorged their passengers into the city for the day.

fundació Joan Miró

But back to Miró; tiny forms in huge empty spaces, deep blue cerulean sky-like canvases, crescent moons, birds, meandering shapes, his work is captivating and has inevitably inspired belatrova, back in Herefordshire, to make a few ceramics in his style.

inspired bowls

If you’d like to see them come and pay us a visit at our old workshop at No9 Bankside Studios during hArt, which runs from Saturday 9th to Sunday 17th (open daily 10 – 5pm), just follow the red hArt signs in Ledbury, or use the postcode: HR8 2DR. You are most welcome. As the hArt website says: “Meet hundreds of individual artists, see an array of artwork across the county in the city and countryside, in fabulous locations such as manor houses, historic barns, farms, churches and beautiful gardens.”

Finally, belatrova shed a tear on learning of the death of Walter Becker, guitarist and composer, who with Donald Fagen was one half of the unforgettable Steely Dan. We invite you to click here and listen to one of their middle period songs (skip the ad): subtle player that he was, technically dexterous, meticulous master of the instrumental gesture and never a grand-stander, “some of his most intriguing work is embedded in the background – the architectural arpeggios of “Aja,” or the wry, blues-tinged asides that dot the margins of “Hey Nineteen.” (Tom Moon / NPR Music)

Many a bowl was made listening to Walter on his guitar.

When all the dime dancing is through, I run to you..

mirror, mirror…

December 8th, 2016/in Blog /by Peter Arscott

Do people see what I see in the mirror? Do I really look like that? What on earth is that thing growing on the side of my left nostril? Most people are fascinated by mirrors, much more so than by an image of themselves in a photo, for example. Perhaps this is because the image they have about themselves is the one they always see in the mirror – it is what they’ve seen most of their lives, so when they see themselves in photographs, their brains think that something is wrong.

This fascination is not a new phenomenon: in ancient Rome, Seneca mocked the amount of money that Roman women were willing to pay for a mirror. Nowadays mirrors abound in homes, shops, offices, cars and handbags, but as objects they remained small and expensive for centuries until in Venice in the 16th century, when a new method was used of backing a plate of flat glass with a thin sheet of metal, producing high-quality mirrors. Much later the process of coating a glass surface with metallic silver was invented.

When you look at yourself in a mirror, what you see depends on the quality of that mirror. If you find yourself looking at your supposed flaws, or trying to avoid looking at yourself altogether, or realizing that you already look like your Dad or Mum, then belatrova’s mirrors are the answer.

This is because our wide painted frames, abstract, colourful, and just slightly Mediterranean, light up the room and instil a feeling of warmth, banishing all melancholy into the dark cellars and dusty closets in the house – metaphorically speaking, since we know how neat and clean belatrovians are as a race.

And a belatrova mirror is not one that can be sneakily used to suggest there is more space than meets the eye in, say, a small apartment by placing it behind a chest and a table lamp, subtle though that can be. Ours is more like a window, providing an airy dimension, amplifying light and breaking up visual clutter, but above all it will immediately brighten the room and create an artistic focal point in the area. Yes, a well-placed mirror will solve most design dilemmas.

Dare we call it a statement piece? Yes, it is bold but subtle, with a diameter of 800mm, so it cannot be described as small. It can make the most of your wall space, and if you are looking for something that creates a design feature in your living room why not hang this beautiful hand painted mirror over your fire place mantle? Or imagine this design as a centrepiece feature in your dining room, refracting the light and bringing your colour scheme together in an eye-catching display.

Its abstract design allows you to hang it four different ways, thanks to the four-way copper wiring system on its reverse side.

80 cms diameter x 2 cms deep

Weighing 10 kg, it must be hung on secure fixings

Hand painted on rounded wooden frame, varnished.

Do visit our website: www.peterarscott.co.uk/dev

elephant on the keyboard

June 2nd, 2016/in art, art ceramics, Blog, ceramic art, Latest News, pots /by Peter Arscott

With an Open Summer Weekend (Sat 2nd and Sun 3rd July) just around the corner, something happened at the Bankside Studio recently. The ghost of Thelonius Monk made itself known and whispered strange and wonderful things into the ears of belatrova as we were making a batch of three legged bowls. Perhaps “Ruby my Dear” was playing on the cd player, whatever it was it made our hands dance and the unintended clay shapes seemed to be spot on. “What about the three legged bowls?” we hear concerned belatrovians ask. Well, we did make them, though a few days later, after we had returned from Monkland.

Thelonius Pugmill and two friends

Taking a brief trip to Monkland is highly recommended: you will come back refreshed and brimming with more ideas than usual. It is liberating to make pieces without worrying about the end result, and if one piece turns out to be a failure then the next one will be stronger for it. In this we were aided and abetted by our hard working pug mill who, as some of you may remember, is called “Thelonius” and who is by far the hardest working member of the team.

For a ceramicist, going to Monkland means that you accept one condition only – that there is no wrong way to make ceramics. This is how you have to approach the lump of clay, just as Thelonius Monk approached his piano. As he saw it, “The piano ain’t got no wrong notes!” and this explains his unique jazz style, which includes percussive playing, unusual repetitions and dissonant sounds, and a surprising use of silences and hesitations. Click here to listen to “Don’t blame me” where there is a fine example of his style.

He also had the habit during performances that while the other musicians in the band continued playing he would stop, stand up from the keyboard, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano. It was in this spirit that one of our team tried to show his fellow potters how to dance a jig while violently flattening clay with a rolling pin and, at the same time, sipping tea from a mug.

A debate followed as to whether this performance was a fine example of syncopation made flesh, since in music, syncopation involves a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected, thus making a tune or piece of music off-beat – “a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm”. We agreed this was the case, and that it would be incorporated into a piece, which in turn would be entitled: “Thelonius made me do it“, subsequently the title for the whole series.

Many of you will want to see this growing collection of freewheeling pottery, and we would like to show it to you, so make an entry in your diaries for Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd of July (10 – 5pm) when we will be opening the workshop for our Summer Weekend.

Philip

Nellie

And we will also be showing our bowls, lamps, tables and birdbaths, as well as our new range of wave bowls and scoop bowls, because not everybody loves Thelonius as much as we do. Philip Larkin, a much better poet than jazz critic, considered Thelonius Monk nothing more than “the elephant on the keyboard”, but Monk is the second most recorded Jazz composer of all time, right after Duke Ellington. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Philip – and just to rub it in, here is a link to a short video of the Thelonius pots spinning to “‘Round Midnight” arranged for saxophone quartet by Quartetto di Sassofoni Accademia, with no piano or elephant.

PS belatrova will be under the Ledbury Market House this Saturday and every Saturday in June – if you are in the area drop by and say hello.

PPS. We would like to thank “Botloes” for giving us such a great review on Houzz – we wonder if this mystery personality might reveal herself or himself?

Hasta luego.

the belatrova look

October 15th, 2015/in Blog, Latest News /by Peter Arscott

the way to work

This is a photograph of one of the paths that lead us to work at No9 Bankside. As you can imagine, the colours and environment change considerably throughout the year, and even the birds sound different – hardly a tweet in January but a choir in May. The walk is soothing and helps focus ones thoughts, and amidst the usual deliberations (Is the universe finite or infinite? Are there female leprechauns? Why do old men have hairs in their nostrils? How much deeper would the oceans be without sponges?), what came into mind recently was “How to explain the belatrova look?”

contemporary retro

retro contemporary

Mid century modern? Vintage 50s? Contemporary retro? Retro contemporary? Not really. It’s just that the belatrova team like bright, bold colours and satisfying forms – it’s age and experience that allow any maker and designer to judge with confidence the fashions and periods she or he has lived through, and to come up with something that looks both familiar and refreshingly new. That’s belatrova.

our neighbouring metal worker, on a good day

Add to this a contemporary rural community that provides know-how and support when dealing with different materials and processes – somehow our neighbours, a metal worker, a maker of Japanese screens, a textile artist and a ceramic sculptor, have some intangible influence on things – and if you add the fact that the three business partners are a potter, a painter and a pianist, you have a recipe for a unique creative business.

sputnik

What we are saying is that belatrova combines an awareness of contemporary style with the influence from childhoods spent in the era of sputnik legs, Mondrian geometry, rounded shapes and coffee tables, in other words the late fifties and early sixties (yes, last century) – but also bringing a contemporary artist’s touch to domestic design and introducing both fun and fine art painting into the home.

banana shaped

And so, not that you need reminding, distinctive hand made, hand glazed ceramic coasters, lamps, bowls, and large standing pots, contemporary designer coffee tables, and ceramic birdbaths on beautiful oak plinths make up the range of stunning products from belatrova. Here are a few images to whet your appetites:

Dizzy Gillespie

durden

platter

ceramic table

As most of you know, everything is made at our workshop in Ledbury, Herefordshire, which you are very welcome to visit; just give us a ring on 01531 634082 in case we are out delivering, or on an emergency expedition to buy olives for our Martinis. Warning: the picture below is not of a Martini, but an experiment involving apple juice and gin and other (secret) ingredients.

ceramic coasters for your cocktail

And by the way, a potter, a painter and a pianist deal respectively with mud, paint and ivory, so we thought at first we would find a name for our enterprise by making an attractive anagram of the three words. Luckily we went for “belatrova” – the only anagrams we came up with were “mad vino purity”, “via nudity romp” and “armpit undo ivy”.

a bat lover

Toodle pip.