When it comes to pottery I am still like a child in a sweet shop. I am attracted to anything made with clay, doesn't matter if it's good 'taste' or not. So when I saw this book in a charity shop I was delighted and took it home to read (look at pictures ) with a cup of coffee.
It's full of wonderful ornate and sometimes bizarre pieces. I was attracted to the tureens, partly because the book says that people no longer use tureens. A quick look on ebay confirmed that this may be true as there are thousands on for sale!
I am afraid to say I did buy one myself on ebay. Why? you may well ask, particularly as it isn't all that attractive. Well the stamp on the bottom says 'Brampton Burslem' ! It clearly had my name on it.
I am now working on making some tureens. The idea of making something more as a centre piece that people may not use interests me also the idea that it is in some way part of a special, ceremonial meal is interesting. As you can see from the bottom picture I also bought a ladle.
Below is a page from May's edition of Homes and Gardens. I bought it on a whim but was taken with this modern take on the ladle by Rachel Holian.
You don't necessarily need to buy a 'ceramics' magazine to find plenty of inspiration!
Here are the details for Ceramics South East for anyone who may want to pop along.
There always seems so many more tasks need to be done related to the pottery that aren't actually making pots! One of them this week was ordering business cards ready to go to Ceramics South East at Aylesford. I had left it fairly late and only got round to ordering them on Wednesday last week but they were with me on Saturday morning.
On Monday I made my second trip to the Chinese visa office. Not wanting to waste a god day out I went along to the Museum of London. I just made a bee line to the medieval section to look at the pots. There weren't a huge number and they were too dark for my camera to pick out. The two pictures above show some Tudor pots.
( Just a footnote to let you know I returned to visa office today and successfully retrieved visa for one 14 year old to fly out to China).
On Thursday I surveyed the pile of biscuit ware and decided that I needed to get on and get some glazing done. When I looked into the glaze bin I was alarmed to find very little glaze left so Friday I had to go to my supplier and restock.
Today I got side tracked from the orders I am doing to make this tureen. It's always a moment to hold your breath when applying slip but fortunately the handles have held their shape. Must go and clean myself up now as I never seem to avoid splashing myself with the slip.
When it comes to pottery I am still like a child in a sweet shop. I am attracted to anything made with clay, doesn't matter if it's good 'taste' or not. So when I saw this book in a charity shop I was delighted and took it home to read (look at pictures ) with a cup of coffee.
Yesterday I returned the finished pottery to the school I visited before half-term. There were two sessions with children in different age groups so I decide to glaze them differently. The top two pictures show work by the younger group which I glazed with a white earthenware and added a bit of colour to bring them to life.
It has been a busy week with the boys at home and different chores to do. Yesterday I had to go to London to get my son a visa to travel to China ( a task that was not successfully completed! )
We spent the week-end in Wales at it was my parent's 60th wedding anniversary so we called into St. Fagans. This wassail bowl was displayed in a dark corner in one of the houses.
