Blimey it's turned Cold, Time for Boiled Eggs and Toasted Soldiers

It really has turned cold today, Time for Marion to bring out the groovy hat

for the dog walk this morning, beautiful day but cold.

Then to Boiled Eggs and Soldiers
slice the toast into soldiers so you can dunk them in the soft boiled eggs

Breakfast is served

Egg Cups & Orders

I warmed up yesterday morning by making 20 Egg Cups

thrown off the hump from one lump of clay.

I then got stuck into making some more of my orders. I find it a strange feeling

when you are making orders, somehow the pots feel different, somehow it feels as if the people that have ordered them are watching you make them, or may be it's because you have met the person who will be buying it before you have made it, if that makes any sense!

I feel under more pressure to make sure it's just right.

Do other potters feel this ? or is this just me!!

The big pot on the wheel is a Harvest jug, thrown in one piece from 6lbs of clay and is 12" tall

in the background are 3 one pint tankards and two jugs but the lady asked me if i could make lids for them to stop the fly's getting in in the summer.

I threw the pots as I would for a storage jar with an inset lid
then pulled the spout in the usual way, It makes a slightly bigger lip but I think its OK.
Here is a closer picture for more detail.
I've been accepted as an associate member of the
Somerset Guild of Craftsmen and tonight is the AGM
so I'm going to go along and see what goes on.
Hope I don't have to kiss the turkey's bottom or anything!!

Bernard Leach - Relevant in 2008 ?

Yes !

Over the past few days I have been reading the classic pottery book

Bernard Leach

A Potters Book

Because I will be moving to a new workshop sometime towards the end of the year

I felt I would plan out my space by drawing a scale map of the two rooms and cutting out cardboard scale size pieces of equipment.

This led me into reading

chapter VIII- The Workshop

Bernard's description of a workshop is as relevant today as it was when he wrote the book in 1940

He said " An individual potter's workshop means more to him than a mere setting where the routine of production can conveniently go on. Here he has to seek and weigh new Ideas, comparing them and his finished work with the standards of the past and the needs of an unborn future."

The section on selecting a site was lovely to read because it takes you back to a time when England still had it's old roads and tea rooms .

my particular favorite piece is

" A showroom at a good pause on an important motoring road, or at some focus of interest, possibly combined with a tea - room run by a partner, may make the difference between success and failure. It allows the pots to be seen in use in appropriate surroundings and gives the visitor a breathing spell during which to consider unusual purchases".

Back out to the workshop, I had done two hours this morning but this has been playing on my mind all morning so I decided to come in, make a cup of coffee and write this before I lost it and my mind moved onto something else.

Aga Show a Success

The Aga show proved to be very good for me all round.

Marions superb selling skills made all the difference, she just has a way of talking to people and making them feel welcome.

The comments I had about the pots were very encouraging too, people do seem to like the simplicity of my work and the glaze colours.

I'm convinced it's because not many people make Slipware these days, I think it went out of fashion in the early 70's when Stoneware became all the rage.

But some of the older dear's

( I'm sure they won't mind me calling them that) I spoke to said that things just cook better in Earthenware, these are people with invaluable knowledge that I find really interesting to talk to, they were probably cooking in Donyatt wares in the 50s & 6Os and in some cases still have the original pots.

The space we were given was very nice, we were in our own room that people had to walk through to get to some of the demonstrations.

The Fantastic range cooker is hand made in France and could be yours for ten squillion pounds

well OK not that much! but it might as well be now I'm a potter.

I made a few new contacts at the show as well with some exciting opportunities for me to follow up next week, so if anything comes of those I'll let you know.

as you can see I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of my pots on the range.
This is one of my smaller casserole dishes that came out of the kiln on Friday morning.


Simplicity

And this is the Kitchen I will be dressing with my pots next week.

of to the workshop now

as I have orders to make !!

I think it's called Adrenaline what ever it is it feels good.

Trying some new ideas

The jug on the left is my traditional design, I do like to keep them simple

so the one on the right is a variation and inspired by

that Mr Fitch chap in Devon.

to be honest I don't think it's good enough and I will work on it.

I had a go at making some Salt Pigs I think that's what they call them

I've never done these before.
This is the end result .

and a few more

and this was my new Casserole that I was pleased with until I saw

Doug's cooking pot on his blog.

New Leaflet has Arrived

My new Leaflet has arrived from the printers

it folds into intself.

These 4 pages make up the back of the leaflet.

and these 4 pages are on the inside

if anyone wants me to send them a copy in the post

you can send me an email to

paulthepotter@btinternet.com

New Leaflet and Ceramic Review new Blog

My new leaflet should be ready on Wednesday of this week

I'm very pleased with it and I wondered what people might think of it

so here is the back page

and this is a page about Barrington.

I don't think it's like any other potters leaflet.

I certainly collected enough of them before I worked out what I wanted to achieve.

It has Eight pages in total and I will put the whole leaflet on here next week.

Don't worry some of them do have pots on.

I fired my Kiln today and during the day I was reading my new copy of

Ceramic Review

They have started a new Blog

http://ceramicreview.blogspot.com/

I also wanted to know what people think about it

I have my thoughts on it !!

New Workshop

I had a second meeting with the building Manager at Barrington Court today

He told me that they would be very happy to offer me a workshop space

because they want to support a new local business.

We agreed the best workshop space from the ones we looked at

would be in this building. Not all of it I hasten to Add

Just the middle bit in this picture

the bay with the green door and the bay area to the left of it.

All the details need to be sorted yet,

but this is a very exciting development.

Late Night Jugs

Finished off a few jugs last night

and I took this shot of the Moon that just looked a bit Spooky

New Customer - New Opportunity

Today I made an appointment to see the showroom manager at Spillers AGA dealers ,with the largest showroom in the Country.

I went to see him later in the day and showed him my Pots.

He loved them and offered me a stand in the showroom later this month

for the above event.

It gets better, he then showed me a fantastic hand made kitchen which was just enormous

and he has offered me the chance to dress it out with my pots immediately after the show.
How cool is that.

Driving back afterward and feeling good about myself.

I then saw these views on the way home.

sometimes life just feels good.

Still I'm going to have to work extremely hard to get all this done in time

I can feel a few late nights coming on.

Back In the Saddle

One aspect of doing business in the local village pub,

is that you get asked to make a lot of Beer Tankards.

These chaps will hold just over 1 Pint of beer

and are made with 2lbs of clay.

These 1 Pint jugs are made using 1 1/4 lbs of clay.
The Jugs on the top row are made using 1 3/4 lbs of clay.
The smaller jugs and tankards now have their handles on.

Some pics of some finished wares

It's surprising what a few onions can do.

Pots & Leaflet Photography

I got into making some 1 pint Tankards yesterday morning, which was a nice feeling to get back on the wheel after a week.

The afternoon was spent putting together some new pictures for the Leaflet

this is one of them that hopefully shows what I am all about

simple country slipware.

The very nice chaps at

http://www.newcenturydesign.co.uk

who are putting the leaflet together for me, read the blog the other day

and noticed I was having trouble uploading some images,

so they very kindly emailed me some new j pegs.

Here is the new front cover

And this was a page we have decided to change

it is very nice but we just think we need to use the space

a bit wiser

River Cottage - A Perfect Day for Ducks

Sunday was supposed to be an open day at Rowswells Farm in Barrington, so the plan was to have the workshop and showroom open all day, but for some reason Rowswells Cancelled the event, so we had no visitors around at all in the morning which gave me time to take a few more pics of pots in between the rain.
In the afternoon we went down to River Cottage HQ for what was described as a Duck Day.
This is the view from the car park.

Part of the event was being filmed for a new series out in late October/ November 08

we kept well out of the way from the cameras.

This is Hugh and his Son hurding Ducks into pens - as you do!!

The Weather was raining on and off all day, they had a local produce tent selling Jam's, Bread, fresh Meat etc: This last picture was taken as we were leaving, as you can see it's rather muddy. But most of England looks like this at the moment as this must be one of the worst Summers we have had for years.

It's Monday morning now and I seem to be over the worst of my man flu, so I'm feeling very positive this morning and I'm off to make some pots.

Made Nothing - Did Loads !!!

I'm sorry my Blog has not been updated for a while but

following on from Potfest I have not been feeling very well

and I have not made one pot all this week,

a touch of Man Flu so I'm told.

I Wonder who told me that ?

Anyway I have spent the early part of the week designing a new Leaflet.

I have tried to upload a copy of the proof but it wont come up.

so I thought I would show you some of the layout plans

and then some of the pictures that may be included.

This picture will not be in the leaflet, but it gives a flavour of Barrington Court

the National Trust property.

I had a meeting here on Thursday about a possible rental of some workshop space.

So I'll keep you posted if I have any luck with that.

This is a picture of one of my workshop walls

What I found weird about it was when I'm sat at the wheel it looks

like Bernard is watching me.

This is the view from my wheel seat.

Still it keeps me on my toes.

Shed loads of pots to make next week.