- and here they are! The first of my wild strawberries - all growing in the gaps between the block paving. They are being guarded by the garden gnome that my daughter made when studying for GCSE art -25 years ago. It's had a bit of damage over the years but is still standing!
I am Vice chair for East Riding Artists - a group set up to encourage visual artists in East Yorkshire. I am trying to get the group more active - to arrange visits to other artist's studios and to participate in communal events. During Lockdown we had talks by artists via Zoom which were very popular.
So yesterday I arranged for them to come to Fangfoss to do some work in clay and some sketching around the village. Twenty people turned up for the afternoon and it was lovely to see everyone again after Lockdown. They had a short tour round the pottery, made some ceramic leaves and did some lovely art work.
We've just spent a lovely couple of days in West Yorkshire around the Hebden Bridge area - primarily to take a few more pots to the Northern Potter's exhibition in the Water Street Gallery at Todmorden. The exhibition is called "Earthworks".
Our "strata" mugs have been very popular and they had sold out. We have also sold a very large jug and a large bowl, so things are looking good. The exhibition has another two weeks to run.
This is the second part of the moon vase construction. The two bowls have been joined together and now Gerry is turning the top.
Eventually he will turn a hole in the Moon Vase to make the top. Originally this would have been the bottom of the bowl!
Gerry is making a few Moon Vases for Potfest in Scotland.
He makes two large bowls, which have very thick rims, on the wheel .
When the clay is leather hard, he puts the two bowls rim to rim and joins them with slip and lets them settle in.
Tomorrow he will put the pot on the wheel and turn the middle (where the rims meet) until they flatten out to make one large round pot.
He tries to make the middle the same thickness as the rest of the pot otherwise when it is glazed, this part will absorb more of the glaze and it will look thicker and different.
The shed door where we keep the packaging materials was left open, and unknown to us (at the time) a robin started to make a nest there.
The robin kept taking leaves into the shed. Here he is on the roof.
He wouldn't have been able to get in or out, so Gerry cut a hole in the shed door (top right).
He has spent the whole day carrying things in and out.
And here he is admiring his handiwork!
But it is too dark....
I made it from Crank clay, which has fired too dark , making the layers indistinct.
It is meant to represent the layers of soil in the earth, with rocks and debris in it.
This week I am going to make it again with a whiter clay......
