Storage Jars - How To Make Flat Lids

At the moment life is getting in the way of making pots. This happens quite frequently of course: there’s always something popping up in life to interrupt potting plans. Recently it’s building work that’s causing disruption. We discovered the outside wall directly above my studio space was in danger of falling over in the next bad storm. And bearing in mind there’s been some pretty stormy, rainy and windy weather recently, we decided we’d better get it fixed pronto! All very boring, disruptive, noisy, dusty and stressful etc. And since it’s happening directly over my head, I’m having trouble concentrating on making pots.

However, in between the drilling and hammering and general crash of masonry falling around me, I’ve managed to do some reclaiming of clay at least and even made a few pots. As you can see in the photos, I’ve made some storage jars in the same style as my mustard pots. They have a simple cylinder design with a small ‘shelf’ area for the lid to sit on and little cut-out holes for a spoon.

The lids are thrown on the wheel from a small lump of clay. They’re made ‘right-way-up’ with the knobs included, which is a bit like making the opposite of a bowl. Instead of making a hole in the centre of the clay, you press down on the edge of the lump to create a flat lid around a central blob, which is shaped to become the knob. I’ve made this little diagram below to illustrate.

As long as you get the amount of clay right for your pot and you measure accurately when throwing, this is a very efficient design. No clay is wasted and it requires only a small amount of ‘clean-up’ when leatherhard: just a wipe over the base with a damp sponge. The holes have to be cut at the optimum time: the clay can’t be too soft or too hard or they won’t be nice and crisp. I used to use a round looped tool to make them but this time I discovered my small cookie cutter is the perfect size.

I’ve always liked storage jars, especially with lids and holes like these! And there’s something very satisfying about getting a lid to fit snugly onto a pot. Anyway, these pots are drying now and waiting to be bisque fired. In the meantime I’m hoping the building work will be over soon so I can get back to normal potting.

New 'Bird Bowl' Pouring Bowls

I’ve been making some new products recently and thought I’d blog about one of them: so above is a photo of my new ‘bird bowl’ pouring bowls. They’re an adaptation or variation on my ‘drizzle’ bowls, which is the name I gave for small bowls with a pouring lip. (You can see posts about them here and here.) The original ‘drizzle’ bowl design was a simple bowl small enough to hold in the palm of your hand – about 8cm across by 5cm high – with a slight pouring lip: perfect for drizzling oils, dressings and spices. Having run out of these I decided to make a new batch. However, on turning day I had the idea of making this batch with little handles…

At first I toyed with the idea of designing a ‘traditional’ looped handle with just enough space for one finger to go through. But the bowls are so low, this style of handle would have felt too cumbersome and heavy. It would also have upset their centre of gravity making them susceptible to knocking over too easily. So in the end I opted for a ‘thumb’ handle: a small addition to the rim of the bowl where your thumb naturally wants to rest when pouring from the palm. It was fun trying out little shapes that might work. In the end I chose a simple, rounded shape seen below. I also added a few lined impressions using a wooden tool to give the thumb grip and to add texture and interest.

While the handles were drying ready for attaching, they reminded me of little rabbit paws: but once they were fitted to the bowl, they seemed to look like stubby tails on a small bird! So straight away I knew they’d have to be called bird bowls. I think this design of handle has worked very well. It lifts up the form and gives the bowl a very sprightly quality and makes you want to pick them up. So it’s an interesting variation, which I hope people will like.

I tried out a variety of glazes with this shape to see how they would work. In the end I’m happy with all the colour combinations and plan to repeat them and maybe try others too. I’ve glazed each bowl by dipping the whole pot into the glaze leaving just the handle, which I’ve dipped in a contrasting glaze with some overlap. The combinations so far include: white with a black tail, brown with a blue/white tail, and a lovely tin based glaze which has a creamy brown fleck contrasted with a brown tail. See? I’ve called all the handles tails…!

All three glaze combinations of bird bowls are available now in my Folksy shop.

St Ives: Inspiration

I thought I’d do something new today. As you can see from my last blog post I recently went to St Ives for a week. I had a fantastic time and almost overdosed on inspiration. I wanted to blog about my trip some more, but couldn’t decide what to focus on. Should I talk about all the fantastic galleries I went to? Or my visit to the Barbara Hepworth museum? What about Alfred Wallis maybe (especially since I stayed in his cottage!) or something about the Tate…?

But as I was going through all the photos I took, I got distracted. Instead of picking some nice pictures to illustrate a blog post about what I’d seen, I started playing around with the images themselves.

I take lots of photos. In fact I will admit that I’m not really a fan of sketching. It’s probably an outrageous thing for an artist to say! But I’ve always found drawing outdoors a cumbersome way of retaining the ideas I get when walking around. Instead I take photos for reference, and having a digital camera (instead of my old ‘analogue’ SLR) allows me to take literally hundreds of photos without incurring costs. When I’m out and about I can click away, capturing colours, forms and ideas in a fraction of the time it takes to fuss about with pencils, numb fingers and sketchbook pages flapping in the wind.

Anyway, the point is, looking back over my St Ives photos today brought out some interesting ideas. I noticed recurring themes as well as some details which I quickly snapped at the time and moved on from, that now - after some time has passed - seem to stand out. I started putting these together into little groups and then decided to blog about these instead! Here's just a few of them. Because in an odd way these images capture something of what it was like walking around St Ives, soaking in the inspiration. Much better than me waffling on about it! I hope you enjoy them!

See more St Ives pictures on my Flickr Set.

St Ives: Leach Pottery

It’s difficult to know where to start. I’ve just come back from holiday, my first in literally years, and since it was also a significant birthday for me in March this year (I won’t say which one…) I really felt I deserved a break and a treat. So on a last minute booking I found a cottage to stay in for a week in the Cornish seaside town of St Ives…

Let me start by saying this has to be the perfect place to go when you’re into paintings and ceramics! The town ticked all my favourite boxes: seaside, beaches, Cornwall, galleries, pottery, coffee shops and narrow cobbled streets. There is simply too much to say about St Ives itself, so instead today I’m going to focus on just one of the places I visited during my stay: and that’s the Leach Pottery.

On the day I visited it was first-thing Monday morning and thick with fog. So as I walked up the enormous, heart-thumping hill towards the pottery – unable to see further than a few yards – I did wonder if I’d ever get there! I was really lucky to have the entire place to myself for two whole hours – and although this was excellent for me, it’s a sad state of affairs and a reflection perhaps of how little attention ceramics get compared to other art forms. However, politics aside (!) I really enjoyed my visit.

The new Leach Pottery complex is divided into three areas. The first is the museum, which allows visitors to walk around the original workshops. These have been kept pretty much as they were in Leach’s time and now have examples of original equipment on display. There’s also a lovely black and white film from the 50’s showing the pottery in action with first-hand narration by the American potter Warren Mackenzie (who studied under Leach). In the last part of the museum there’s examples of work by the main makers from the pottery, including Shoji Hamada, Janet Leach and Michael Cardew.

The next part of the complex contains the new dedicated studios where the modern apprentices work. This is where the new Leach Standard ware is made and workshops held. Although they’re not open to the public, you can peek into them via windows. The last part of the complex is the shop. Of course I spent about half an hour deciding what to buy! There was too much choice and I was limited by the fact I had to travel home on the train. In the end I bought a piece from the new Standard Ware range designed by Jack Doherty; a small soda-fired deep bowl in a beautiful black glaze. Chatting to the person in the shop, it was interesting to find out that although each apprentice had to make the Standard Ware to the same specifications, subtle differences meant they could tell who made what. So even at a glance she could tell me that Kat Wheeler (who apparently especially likes to make the bowl shapes from the new range!) made my new little bowl.

Overall it was a really inspiring visit and the whole place had a positive, informal atmosphere: something that often seems to go hand-in-hand with ceramics! I came out with lots of ideas and a nice warm feeling on a cold foggy day. I’m looking forward to getting back on the wheel soon (once all the post-holiday chaos has settled down) to try out some of those new ideas.