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......
When you are a potter you are constantly reminded that raw materials are a finite resource - when they run out - that's it! Then you have to find a new supply or an alternative. This is what has happened to us this week - the usual supply of feldspar has run out and a different batch has been sent. This has meant a lot of testing to see if it has the same properties as the old feldspar. Gerry put lots of tests throughout the kiln and luckily it has turned out the same as the old feldspar.
He also put in a test plate with overlapping glazes on top to see what the effects were. He wants to use some of these on some platters.
Whenever I am out in the garden a little robin comes and keeps me company. He comes down to me really closely and watches. Even when I'm just having a cup of tea or reading a book he will be there.
It did start to rain - bang on 12 noon when the weather forecasters said it would and just as we were about to go to the Open Garden at Linden Lodge. We still went though.
And it has rained all this afternoon and is still raining now. It's the first substantial rain we have had for a week.
