Sorry to my fans (both of them!) that I have not been posting for over a year - it all seemed a bit pointless - compared to real life! If you are missing me please email and I will start again!
Meanwhile life as a potter continues and 2016 is looking like a busy year.
Dorset Art Weeks with the Upwey Potters.
Ancient Pottery activities with the Ancient Wessex Network

Getting Creative

My ancient pottery replicas are the focus of a new display at the Creative Gallery in Wareham during January. Very nicely put together gallery.

Not being very active pottery-wise at the monent, shortly off to Dublin for the experimental Archaeology Conference. Looking forward to meeting other folk with my interests.

More blogs soon....

Becoming Festive Later

The Dorset Pottery Group annual show went fairly well, some potters (me included) did OK, some thrived less well. I'm glad to think I'll not have to organise the event again, having retired!

Locally in Upwey we are staging our annual potters' festive offering on 6th & 7th of December, unfortunately the actual potters will be a bit thin on the ground due to a variety of good and bad excuses, like being out of the country or recovering from surgery. However a few of my friends have agreed to boost the items on display by joining in, so it is becoming an Ancient Wessex Network festive event!

I've been working with Mark Vyvyan-Penney over the last few weeks using our bronze casting furnace to experiment with more modern techniques than our usual ones to create some bronze castings. I've enjoyed the opportunity to do something a bit different, although I have also set myself the task of experimenting with different blends of materials to make the cruicibles and lost wax molds.

Pots in the Gallery

I've been displaying my pots at Bridport Art Centre for the last couple of weeks, in the Dorset Pottery Group's annual exhibition.

The feedback has been good, both for the show as a whole and my personal display.

We've been doing this show for a couple of decades now, it still appeals to the visitors.
More details at the group's website :-
www.dorsetpotterygroup.co.uk

This will be the last show that I organise for the group, having announced that a new team needs to take over the management of it. Why should I have all the fun?!

I need to do some careful thinking about what to do with my pottery in the future, starting with better and more ways of selling it!

January will see my ancient pots featured in The Creative Gallery in Wareham, run by Fiona Kelly and her team. See the website for details :- www.creativegallerywareham.co.uk

Now back to doing my accounts for the Tax Man! A task I save for damp autumn days.

All Fired Up Again

We unloaded the wood fuelled kiln today, a splendid batch of pots emerged after a well behaved firing over the weekend.
It was the hotest firing we've done so far, so the glazes were more mature than ever. Unfortunately a few pots cracked in the heat - mainly the thinner ones which distorted and broke.
The whole story can be seen at the archive webpage :-
http://www.crumbleholme.plus.com/Beakerfolk/wood-kiln/WodenFiring12.htm

So now on with sorting out the Dorset Pottery Group's annual exhibition at the Bridport Arts Centre, which opens this weekend. I hope it all comes together well, it seems a lot of effort at times!
Details at :-
https://sites.google.com/site/dorsetpotterygroup/annual-exhibition

Broken Promises

I have recently got into the "mail order" business, sending replica pots via Parcel Force to far flung places. However as most of them arrived broken, I am ceasing that sort of activity, which I always knew was a silly idea! Shame because there is a demand for ancient replicas thanks to the change in the school curriculum. I will still do commissions for larger quantities that I can deliver myself, or can be collected by the client - from my studio or an event.

I have started loading the wood fired kiln again, with pots made during my recent open studio event.
I hope I can avoid the rain showers and get finished by Friday evening, when we aim to start firing.

The beakers shown have been biscuit fired and glazed with my standard Cornish Stone and Iron Oxide brown glaze, they filled the bottom layer.
 
Then came the bowls inspired by the local iron age pottery, these have been raw glazed with "Gunmetal" glaze, that will hopefully mimic the Black Burnished Ware appearance of the originals.

A batch of jugs almost filled the back section, with some space at the top for a few larger urns made at Corfe Castle in July. 

The front section will be loaded with pots made by Laurence Eastwood, my class students and some friendly potters.

I've been getting ready for the Dorset Pottery Group's annual exhibition at Bridport Arts Centre, which I also help to manage. We are featuring pieces by "famous" potters - on loan from members that have inspired them. I wonder how that will go down?!

A Round Trip

I had an interesting day on Thursday, visiting the Salisbury Museum, Wessex Archaeology, the Stonehenge Visitor Centre and the Somerset Heritage Centre.
I was delivering some commissioned replica pots, like the one pictured - which is a neolithic "maggot" decorated bowl, one of 5 that went to Somerset. More at this link.
I was very impressed with the new Archaeology Gallery at Salisbury Museum, which has a magnificent display of ancient pots, some in tall glass cases which makes examining them closely very much easier than usual. See the Museum website at this link.
Interesting chat with the folk at Wessex Archaeology, catching up on their activities and getting their thoughts about some of the experiments I have been doing or planning.

I have also just sent off a couple of batches of replica pots for use in handling boxes, I hope Parcel Force is kind when handling them.
I was very happy with a pair of neolithic beakers, with impressed zig-zag decoration and small lug handles.

I have been finishing off the pots made during my recent open studio event, I think I now have enough to fill the wood fuelled kiln again, in time to fire before the Dorset Pottery Group's exhibition, which opens in less than a month!