Christmas Rush

Wow, I cannot believe I haven't posted since April.  To have that big of a lapse means I better have something to show for it...

You'll be pleased to know that I haven't fared too badly...as you can see below.

In looking at the photo, I guess it doesn't look like 6 months worth of stock.  But trust me, when you are turning out this stuff in a 5 x 7 shed, I was definitely maxing out my space!

All that is left now is marketing and getting to those shows!  My first big show year and I am super excited about my new wares - I just hope the public likes them too.

Updated Etsy Shop Sorted!

Now Etsy has my whole new range for view.
Given that, I have to say that I am not relying on etsy very much at all for bringing in sales.
The fact that my wares are ceramic and therefore heavy, shipping rates from UK to the states are astronomical.  (This is one of the few times of recent years I have yearned to be in the states so I could take advantage of national postal rates!).
With such high shipping costs, I'd imagine most people are put off.  I guess posting my wares on there is more of a way of being seen.  I don't imagine it will amount to much and that's why I am pushing Folksy more.  If I was a jeweller or a textiles person, the Etsy world would be open to me, but for now I am just going to have to use it as a showcase.
So, here it is!

www.etsy.com/shop/jmlpottery

Does training for a 1/2 marathon and potting mix?

Hmmmn, that would be a big fat NO!!!!
Every morning that I train, I cannot help but be extremely exhausted and useless the remainder of the day! Sadly, with my impending race next weekend, more training sessions means more useless days.
I did have one to two really productive days this past week.
First, I managed to clear 118 test batches of glaze. Yes, you read correctly, 118 batches of 100g glaze pots, built up over 2 years in my endeavour to find that perfect glaze and slip. Can you believe it took over 3 hours to scrape clean into plaster batt (to dry for easy dumping into toxic section of my local recycling/waste centre) and scrub the pots clean. Man, that was a workout in itself! However, what a great feeling it was. Not only did it open up space in my already cramped pottery, but it was a realisation that I had reached the end of my journey of researching, developing and testing.
Once thought of as the unreachable goal, I find myself emerging on the other side of that excrutiating long dark tunnel I have been crawling through for years. I feel like I can finally start enjoying the creative process again, now that I have some decisive conclusions about the clay, additives, slips and glazes I will be using going forward. No more juggling between 22 strains of stain concentrations tested amongst 6 different types of slips which lie under the choice of 15 different glazes, all of which can be applied on top of 11 various white clays. You get the point. The variables have narrowed to a manageable amount.
I have my chosen materials and batches of slip/glaze.
I know how my kiln fires - knowing the hot and cold spots and how best to fire my chosen materials.
I know the forms I want to make and sell.
I have even managed to simplify what it is that I am making - reducing the types of forms on offer, streamlining the making process to a more suitable level of ease.

This leads to the second productive day of my week: I actually started making my new forms and it felt so good just to create, knowing exactly what decoration I was going to apply rather than settling with some undeveloped glaze cover for the sake of finishing the form off. How great did it feel!!! Now I just have to fire and assemble the goods to see how they look!

So, from now on it is time to keep moving with my prototypes and emerge from my long retreat and show everyone what it is that I can offer the world.
A very exciting time! Perhaps all these years of slogging it behind the scenes with scores and scores of okay ideas always seemingly resulting in bad outcomes will actually start paying off!

So, after next weekend's big race, I can only imagine what more energy from reduced running will bring to the potter's wheel! I cannot wait!

Visit to Lacock Village and Pottery

Over Easter Weekend, Joe and I planned a trip to Bristol, hitting various National Trust sites (click here to see my blog about the cool properties we have visited) along the way.

We rolled up in one village arguing that it sounded vaguely familiar but not sure why.

Lacock, voted the prettiest village in England at some point (or so Joe told me!).

Then it dawned on us - we had been here before with my Grandparents when they were visiting around Easter last year! Before, our visit was on a very unforgiving day weather-wise and we had collapsed into a fabulously warm, welcoming pub all toasted up with roaring fire and drool inducing homemade dishes. It was dark and rainy that day, but I remember seeing a pottery sign which upon further inspection, revealed a quite gallery space closed for that day.

So, little did we realise that the National Trust's Lacock Abbey was indeed in the same place as that fab pub and village we stumbled upon before.

This time, full daylight with cloud greeted us as we drove in, but the village was buzzing with littl-in's and parents on an early Easter Egg hunt through the streets and businesses in the village. And guess what, that pottery was open!

Take a look at this grand and beautiful property! Believe it or not, it is David McDowell's pottery, gallery cum bed and breakfast all in one!

As we stepped into the gallery space, David was walking up the back steps from his pottery to greet us visitors. After introducing myself, he graciously offered to show us around!

David was so busy, but spent over an hour showing us around and making us feel so welcome. We found out that over 20 years ago, he had to apply to the National Trust to live in this building, taking it over from the previous dweller, Robert Fournier (yeah, the man who wrote that awesome Pottery Dictionary that I love)!!!! Most of it was is in shambles and he restored it during every bit of limited free time that he had while running pottery classes to make the dosh! (Forgive me if I got this wrong David!!)

The location is superb, across from this amazing church, just at the end of the village road.

His kiln building out back was derelict when he moved in and it now houses a handmade massive gas kiln and quite an impressively organized wall system of props and shelves (the envy of any potter really!).

The icing on the cake for me was his big ole pottery in the lower ground of the house (under the gallery which the steps lead up to in the photo below) and all the fab pottery scattered around his B&B. He has Wally Keeler, John Maltby, and many others all just hanging out together on shelves - cool, eh?!

Here's Joe, David and the rhubarb!

He showed us around the house and then asked if we wanted to come to his allotment to pick up fresh rubarb and rocket for dinner that night. Well, if the set-up wasn't making me drool already, come on - how much more idyllic can this get!

It can! The allotment happened to be at the end of a path winding around the church beyond a lovely stone wall and locked wooden door. And check out that rubarb! My Aunt Rose would be so envious!

Needless to say, I had effectively died and gone to heaven in that afternoon. I had found my utopia....Joe was a little giddy too, although not convinced about my sudden desire to be a B&B owner...

I just cannot thank David enough for being so great to us! His pots, rhubarb and B&B are all fab!

Anyone interested in staying, here is his website. Well worth the visit! Lacock itself is pretty much smack between Bristol and London, close to Bath and very lovely countryside.

Did we even make it to the Abbey - nah, but who cares! What an afternoon!

Can I declare myself to be a potter?

When people ask me what I do for a living, I am aways in a quandry for how to reply.
Immediately in my mind, I think "yeah, I'm a potter", but I always hesitate saying it. In thinking about why I do this, several answers come to mind:

• I haven't sold anything of serious value or made any real income from it yet
• I'm not full time potting
• I feel that declaring I am a potter makes me vulnurable because I don't have the answers to the very basic and expected questions people then ask me in response: "Where do you sell?", "Do you have a website?", "What do you make?" (answers being in order, "No where", "Not yet, but I have a blog" and "still testing and working out whether functional or nonfunctional is the direction to go")
• Without answers to these questions which could establish to the person asking that I am "succeeding" (in the monetary sense of the meaning) an an artistic entrepenuer, I am left feeling very inadequate knowing I have worked so hard for 7 years of training only to have very little to show for it by way of sales or recognition amongst peers.

So, what do I do instead? I proceed something like this...."Well, I want to be a potter, but currently I work 3 days a week for by bread and butter and then focus my energies in my free time to pursue my passion with clay"... I go on rambling like a doofus coming up with what can only be described as a painful descent into making up reasons and excuses for my inability to make this "pottery dream" of mine a reality after 7 long years.

As soon as I recognise I am plummeting into BAD conversation zone (which is sadly often much later than I should have seen it coming), I end up making both myself and my poor innocent conversation buddy feeling awkward.

Lovely, eh?

So, next time someone asks me what I do, maybe I should just say:

"I'm a potter"

Do you think I'll have the guts to say it?