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In praise of brick

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Bradlow Hill was a cold and finger-numbing walk on Sunday morning – and foggy too; you can hardly see the steeple of St Michael’s in the distance. It was quiet, except for the sound of St Michael’s bells tolling in the background. Click and you’ll get a short video, I’d stopped panting by then – you know you’re getting old when you’re told to slow down by your doctor and not the police. Too early for snowdrops or any plant to show itself, so I thought I’d include images of vases with daffodils in them – to remind you that Spring is always around the corner.

Turning a corner without looking, I stubbed my toe on a brick the other day. Instead of throwing it away in anger I picked it up and studied its surface texture and subtle colouring, its weight and the simplicity of its shape. “The humble brick is worthy of respect,” said Spiro (marketing director of Peter Arscott Ceramics), “but in Cyprus in my day (3rd Century BC) stone was deemed the nobler for building places of worship.” I was about to say something, but he raised his hand in that weird ecclesiastical way that Bishops have, and continued: “I hope you’re not thinking of comparing it to the pieces that come out of our kiln here at PAC?  I accept that they are made by hand, but they are hardly unique or one-off. The purpose of this website is to promote beautiful and interesting works of ceramic art – harping on about bricks would be like dancing en pointe in hobnail boots”.

Well, Spiro can sometimes get it wrong – after all, he is man who believes that goat’s yoghurt is the ambrosia of the gods. Anyway, the brick gets a raw deal. In my view it’s overlooked or dismissed, this man-made building material that dates back to 7000BC, discovered at the site of an ancient settlement around the city of Jericho. It’s entered our language too. We bang our heads against a brick wall, accuse the less intelligent of being as thick as a brick, or the barmy of being a few bricks short of a full load, and we come down on the wayward and mischievous like a ton of bricks.

Jericho. Photo A. Soblowski

So, in praise of bricks, here are some facts. The most common bricks are made from clay and heated at a 1000℃ – here at PAC our stoneware is glaze-fired at 1200℃. There is minimal waste in the production process as only an insignificant amount of minerals and moisture vanish during the heating process. Bricks are energy efficient because they hold sunlight throughout the day and release that energy after the sun goes down.

The indentation in the surface of a brick is called a frog, and debate rages over whether the bricks should be laid frog-up or frog-down. The minerals used to create a brick determine its colour. Red bricks are red because of the iron in them, higher temperature firings produce darker coloured bricks, and a London brick is yellowish because of the magnesium contained in the brick earth.

The Ledbury viaduct

The other (good) reason for talking about bricks is that there’s a new path inaugurated in Ledbury which allows you to walk under and alongside the old railway viaduct. Up close it’s a beautiful structure, satisfying because it’s both pleasing to the eye as well as practical – in terms of design, a perfect example of something built the way it was in order to fulfil its brief: to carry trains over a low dip of meadowland. Its function is its beauty.

Skew bridge over the Hereford Rd

It was built by the Colwall engineer Stephen Ballard (1804-1861) and was opened in June 1861. His brother Robert Ballard made the five million bricks used in the 19-metre high, 31-arch construction on site, or rather, his workers did – it would have been too much for one pair of hands. The result was that brickworks sprang up around Ledbury to cope with the task of providing the material to construct the viaduct. While digging the cutting by the station, Ballard’s workmen came upon the Silurian fossils of a mammoth and of a bivalve, which allowed the local geological system to be worked out (before you ask, the Silurian period began 443.8 million years ago and ended 419.2 million years ago).

Not a mammoth or a bivalve

The many workmen involved lived in temporary shelters just outside Ledbury near Wellington Heath, an area that became known as Monkey Island because of the workers climbing up and down the huge structure. As far as I know, other than the name, there is no sign left of their time here. This in turn made me think of the anonymous bricklayer whose work we take for granted, and of a poem by Jonathan Davidson, poet, writer, brick lover and author of A Commonplace, a verse of which goes:

“…And they are dumb or gone away or dead

Who cut the sweet, pale clay

Of sentences and fired them

In common kilns to make

The narratives that keep us home and dry…”

(from Brickwork by Jonathan Davidson / A Commonplace: Apples, Bricks & Other People’s Poems)

That’s enough about bricks. For reasons both complex and tedious, our kiln has had a sabbatical and only very few pieces have been made, other than a flurry of creativity when the grandchildren visited. “It’s a chance to show images of early PAC work”, says Spiro, “to show the variety and range. And by the way, this blog is getting too text heavy.” As a result, behold a scattering of ceramic images throughout.

Spiro’s friends, the goats at Bradlow, seem to be thriving. They have extraordinary eyes, like octopuses and toads, rectangular pupils that help them avoid predators, giving them a greater accuracy of depth perception in their peripheral vision. This is enhanced by a feature that lets them rotate their eyes to keep their pupils parallel with the horizon when they bend their heads low to feed – I don’t know about your eating habits, but this sounds to me a useful ability to have.  But it’s strange being stared at by a goat, it’s as if they’re thinking about something you don’t know.

Passageway under viaduct

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.”

Goodbye 2023

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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

Want to know what Nasocarpia is?

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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.

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.”

The Spirit with no anus – pottery and anthropology

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Walking up to Bradlow Knoll on a bleak overcast day can be heavy going, and though I like to think I ascended the hill like a young impala, the truth is that it was …  heavy going. Recovering my breath on C.J.’s bench, I decided to continue further into Frith Wood, on your behalf, as there was a possibility that the snowdrops were still in bloom, and I could take some photos for the blog. Alas, I was too late, and too early for anemones and bluebells. It was all a dull greyish brown, with little to attract the eye, so inevitably one’s mind wandered.

 

Every so often, ceramic vases fling themselves headlong to the floor, shattering into many pieces with that splintering sound that is so alarming. Or else they’ll explode in a muffled thud in the kiln during a firing. Or sometimes you’ll hear that gentle click as one vase touches another and a handle you spent half a day getting right weeks ago drops off. It is not an obvious issue related to ceramics, that of the sound clay makes, but a recent pinging heard on opening the kiln prematurely (revealing a long thin hairline fracture on a vase) brought it to mind.

Yours truly ascending Bradlow Knoll. Photo Hein Waschefort

This was reinforced when I met a professor of anthropology at a party recently. He has written a paper regarding the symbolic resonances of clay, pottery-making, and pottery objects amongst Northwest Amazonian peoples that adds to our understanding of how indigenous populations think about, and relate to, the production and use of ceramic objects, especially in the contexts of ritual and cosmology. Yes, these are the sort of parties I go to.

Capuchin monkey. Photo David M. Jensen

He told me about the Colombian Pirá-Paraná region’s version of the story that accounts for the origin of the clay used to make pottery.  As you have no doubt worked out from the blog’s title, it is an earthy and unpretentious story, and squeamish readers may now want to turn away and just look at the pictures. OK?  Here goes. The Spirit with no anus began visiting the children in the house of his neighbour, swearing them to secrecy, entertaining them with his ankle rattles and maracas, and running away when the adults appeared. When the youngest child divulged everything, the Spirit boiled them in a cooking pot, though the youngest one escaped and told his father, who retrieved the children’s bones, which he beat with leaves, thus bringing them back to life as capuchin monkeys. Much later the Spirit came upon the father fishing in a lake. The father let off a loud and sonorous fart, and the Spirit with no anus, of course, wanted to know how he achieved this. The father explained that one needed an anus, and that if he wanted, he’d make the Spirit one by poking a stick up his backside. Which he did, hammering the stick further and further into his body until it came out through his throat and the Spirit fell down dead.

The Spirit’s smooth backside, an upturned Barasana pot (collection of Dr Stephen Hugh-Jones, photo by same)

Now, bear with me. The Spirit is Clay Father. The flesh and other soft parts of his body became the pungent, bluish-grey potting-clay that is extracted from holes in the banks of streams. The Spirit was a creator deity who gave rise to the earth, and his smooth backside is the underside of a cooking pot; the pot’s mouth is his voracious, open maw; and from the pot’s point of view, when the father retrieves his children’s bones, the pot vomits them from his open mouth. Today he appears as a pottery trumpet.

Uriro pottery trumpet, the Spirit with an anus. Collection of Dr Hugh-Jones

From flatulence to flutes, and the ceramic instruments made long ago in South America, clay lends itself to being blown into to produce all sorts of sounds. Just think of the humble ocarina, the Andean clay pipe, the clay whistle and the percussive pot drums, often made in animal or human form, probably for ceremonial functions or as playthings.

Chimu whistling jar. Circa 1470

The “whistling jar” is a 1- or 2-chambered vessel in which a whistle, often concealed by a bird’s head, is sounded by blowing into the spout, or by pouring liquid from one chamber to the other to create a bird-like twittering sound. Smaller whistles in animal shapes, perhaps worn suspended from the neck, frequently have fingerholes that allow variation of pitch. Sometimes, the sound it creates mimics the creature represented.

The poster above is to call your attention to The Chuffed Store Pop-up shop which is appearing at 16 Seymour Place, Marylebone, London, W1H 7NG  until 26th March. You will not see clay trumpets, ocarinas or fat-bottomed pots there, but you will see fine examples of Peter Arscott ceramics, including three-legged bowls and large stoneware platters. Dotted incoherently around this blog are images of said pieces.

Clay ocarina, Paracas, Peru.

If you’d like to try making a clay ocarina yourself,  click here – the first person who succeeds and sends me a video showing it in action will win a three-legged bowl.

 

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.

Kiln Kat Kalamity

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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.