Test Card, Simple Pleasures

At last the test card transmission plate has arrived. In March I was beginning this piece of work in my head and then I wrote about it in April. I have updated it with a few more photograhps of test cards.

This is not the plate I intended to put it on and in truth this is just a (wait for it) test! I need to see how these colours are going to turn out, in particular the blue cobalt which is the last colour on the right. It is also on the dreadful white earthenware clay. I plan this new story for a jar, but it does all rest in this plate at the moment.

Finished tiles and other things

At long last the tiles are finished, they have been a good exercise to do and have given me the structure for the next big jar that I need to begin coiling today. I am particularly pleased with the left hand tiles and the way the plants layer over each other.

Below is the front of the recession proof dish, rather minimal and subtle, very unlike me. I have used a white earthenware and coloured slips, it will be interesting to see how this comes out.



Finally the pottery mascots have well and truly dug themselves in. They set up camp while I was in England and have now got eggs!

Recession Proof Pottery

Above is the bottom of the flat dishes I have been making today. All the ray dishes I made last month had recession proof stamped underneath them too. I use wooden printing block letters which are 1.5 cm tall. KS in the middle is a silver ring made by Lorraine Gibby for me.
The tiles got a couple of my hours attention too. I have realised that I am going to have to make a boarder of tiles for them now so that they can go up like a freeze, the splash-back idea is out the window for now.

Kitty is back in the pottery

That's all I'll say for now. I have a lot of work to make, I am being very messy with Plaster of Paris and it is about 28 degrees outside. I have my new apron on too.


Plastering was so dull today. I found some tiles in the damp cupboard that had to have some attention so this is the result of the afternoon not a rack full of molds for snazzy feet for the fish dishes. They will make a nice splash back for my sink and they have got me thinking BIG too.

Porstmouth Harbour to Andalucia

Saturday evening at Portsmouth dock; we are taking the night crossing to St Malo and the car is loaded to the gunnels as usual, mainly with pottery materials. Everyone thinks I am mad because I am taking clay back with me but I am not mad at all. I have had a complete nightmare with the Spanish clay, it is beautiful to work with and very very orange, but there in lays the problem, it is too orange. The iron content is so high that the clay is vitrifying at 1080 and I need to fire to 1110 Celsius so I now risk the entire ships stability by stuffing the boot with 150 kilos of Staffordshire’s finest earthenware clay.
The cars headlamps are pointing skyward on account of the load which makes the mountain hairpin bends that we encounter later rather interesting, and the stopping, well don’t even go there! I do wonder what it says about us at customs as the car rolls onto the weighbridge on entering French border control. SUSPICIOUS I should imagine.Photographs of the Helicopter Pad on board (a restricted area I managed to get myself escorted off) and a naval frigate parked (wrong word there must be a nautical one) alongside. Ha, that's it; alongside. On to Santo Domingo de la Calzada and the pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela.


Sunday, Santo Domingo

Driving along all the lines and lines and lines to the Spanish border, my maps were all very creased by the end. The time between docking in St Malo and leaving the ship was disproportionately long but it gave me time to have a good look round all the other cars. There must have been a classic outing going to France either that or most May time holiday makers have extraordinary flare and panache and all own E type Jaguars and classic motorcycles. That said, the man next door to me did have an Audi estate filled with trays of budding Lobelia and Petunias which I thought was an awful lot of effort for run-of-the-mill bedding plants, maybe he didn’t see the Chelsea Flower Show when he was back in England, but really we do live in other countries and we should be spending our money even on Lobelia locally in the country we are living in. You’re not telling me he was taking the bedding plants on holiday with him!

Anyway an hour later we roll off the ramp, slot in the sound track to Easy Rider and leave the ones with flare behind. It’s all a blur really through France, we make Bordeaux by 1.30pm and cross the border at 3.00pm and immediately stop for lunch because stopping in France can be ghastly and the lavatories are a long way down with foot rests (!) and not what I am used to.

We are staying at the Parador de Santo Domingo Bernardo de Fresneda. It is a beautiful ex monastery with an internal courtyard and vaulted passageways. Our room is lovely with the original tiny window in one corner. The town is awash with pilgrims for we have bedded down on the Camino de Santiago or the way of St James.

Below is my favourate picture which I caught through an open doorway to the vestry. I am drawn to the Camino, the devotion and the journey. One day I would like to do the walk until then I shall gaze in admiration as the prayers are whispered in circles around the tomb of Saint Domingo. In the morning we head to Andalucia and our little village via the hairpin bends and an altered centre of gravity, in every way.

Monday, further south

I would like to have stayed in Santo Domingo it was a very nice town but on we must go, another 500 miles and another 7 hours at least of driving. The car is feeling very heavy and the temperature has risen to 30 degrees C as we approach Madrid. Leaving the town we could see the pilgrims on their path, high up on the hills with bulging packs. I suppose we saw about 200 in all between Santo Domingo and Burgos, and there we left them as they continued west and we turned south.
Music for the journey was varied, a bit of Marc Almond, High Fidelity All Stars, Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen. What a mix! The first glimpse of the lake as we leave Granada city and round the hill is always good, the anxiety of how the water levels are disappear as we see it is fine and full. The snow has melted from those small mountains in the distance since we left three weeks ago

The mountains were a slog with the clay and the bends were OK we just had to be slightly less reckless. We got back safe and sound at about 8.30 pm to our little house to find the entire population sitting on their doorsteps or in the streets with a bit of a party atmosphere, a combination of the 32 degrees and the lack of electric power which had been switched off since lunch time. Ah what joy to be back….I thought to myself, good job I’m not firing the kiln.


Time traveling successful, a full 55 years in reverse mode has been achieved and I will stay in this time warp (1954) for another eight weeks getting the work ready for the Joze Show. I have brought with me a new apron from the future, I can’t wait to wear in tomorrow morning, my neighbours will be agog it’s quite something!

A Long Drive to the South

I am packing up for the drive south. We have an overnight stop in the north of Spain in a monastery on Sunday night, arriving for vespers! We board the night ferry at Porstmouth bound for St Malo (wind force 6 in the Channel) this is such a nice port because you get to sail out with HMS Victory (Nelsons Flag Ship) in dry dock along with the iron ship HMS Warrior visable from your port hole and I LOVE it.
Photo of the shed that we leave behind for the arrid hills of Andalucia on Monday night!

Picnic in the Forest 1950’s

Isn’t this a great photograph! It is my Mother with her parents, circa 1950’s. It would have been taken by my Auntie Barbara who had a very good eye for a shot that told a story. My Mother looks about 18 or 19 here so that would make it 1952, and look, are her feet bare?

Annette Messager

There is nothing remotely regular about the exhibitions I see and post on this blog and I should write up more on the exhibitions I see, however, for now, read on. There is a retrospective of the French artist Annette Messager at the Hayward Gallery in London and I went to see it on Friday, and it was extraordinary so it qualifies for entry here.This is a hugely theatrical exhibition where almost all the spaces are filled with mixed up creatures that are in fact stuffed toys (or ex toys), completely corrupted species with legs from one and heads from another, a conglomeration of limbs and bodies. They are all are tied to ropes, some are suspended from pulleys and are going up, and coming down; while others are dragging around the perimeters of a crazy playroom. “Articulated Disarticulated 2001-2002” pictured above, is a circus of macabre puppets come to life.Dead birds in crochet tops and stuffed birds with replacement knitted heads are tragic but not grim; it’s a game that endures. The sea of real waves is actually swathes scarlet silk, articulated by compressed air, it rumbles from the anti room at the back of this large space flodding forward towards you feet. Underneath are glimpses of illuminated creatures and alternately sunken cities, it is so delightful and affirms for me my own child self that still lives alongside me as a ridiculously familiar comedy anchor.The exhibition is accessible with a morbid side that is not detected by the young visitors to this art gallery, the children were entranced and stimulated by what they saw, this morphing, butchering and concocting is completely normal to them. It is so good to be reminded of our past less serious selves.

See Annette Messager in pictures here

Southbank Cerntre, Hayward Gallery click here

I have used some photographs from this site and the ones of Annette Messagers framed photographs I have scanned from her book "Word for Word"

May Day in Sussex

The sun has been out and Bill is sunbathing here, a bit overexposed so you can’t make out the spots on his tummy, I will try harder with my new camera.
This fantastic ditch I came across yesterday one of the best I have been in for years.

Finally the beautiful yellow golden Paeony Mlokosewitschii Ranunculaceae, Molly the Witch. I can't pronounce the name (I’ll have to practice it in the bath); it is one of the classic garden plants. It has glaucous, bluish-green leaves, and shows this glorious, single, lemon-yellow flower up to 5 inches across with hundreds of golden stamens like heavy Victorian bullion fringe, in the middle the pink stigmas. I think I am going to fill up my computer memory with all the plants I plan to photograph in this beautiful garden.

Origami Ginkgo biloba leaf

This is from the Ginkgo Pages blog written by Cor Kwant. There is a wonderful little animation to look at if you go to this site and click on the link. It takes you though the stages of making a ginkgo leaf. As I watched it I was completely overwhelmed by the simplicity and wonder of nature and how sacred it is to capture and recreate and own its image actually is. My own homage to Ginkgo is already in the pipes.