Behind the scenes

Here are a few hundred hearts – words to see you through the week’ stacked in alphabetical order ready to be placed into their boxes in the shop shed. There, they’ll wait for website orders to come in, or in person sales here or at our next events.

They represent a lot of work. First of all there’s the stock taking – which words are running low?

Then there’s the actual making -rolling the clay thin and stamping out the heart shape, smoothing the edges and surfaces and then adding a word, one of eighty-one that we use.

Once dried, between two pieces of plasterboard, they are fired in the electric kiln. After a couple of days, we can empty the kiln, sand any rough spots and then they are glazed, with one of our eight stoneware glazes and fired again, each one laid out carefully on the shelves. The kiln is fired again and then comes the next stage..

Each heart is checked for quality – does the word stand out clearly enough? Is there any smudge on the surface? Are they flat and straight?

The ones that pass the test are then sorted and placed in their relevant box ready to be selected and the stock taking page is updated, as well as the website shop.

Pottery for a living is not just pottery!

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Works in progress

pottery moon bowls

This image represents some team work between the two potters who make up seatree argyll.

Chris writes poetry – has done since childhood – and Michaela started putting his words into clay some years ago.

Now both of us make pottery, always incorporating Chris’s poetry.

Chris made these mini moon bowls, about 10cm diameter, by forming two domes using slabs of clay inside small bowls. Once they are dry enough to hold their own shape, they are joined using slip and the join softened and cleaned up, and a hole pierced in the top. The clay is smooth raku clay.

They were then wrapped in a (used many times) plastic bag, keeping them soft overnight till Michaela came into the pottery the next morning, ready to add the poetry.

We have worked out that we can fit an average of eight words around the moon bowl centre, depending how many short or long words there are. Michaela looks through our poetry collection to find a line that would work. The letters are then pressed in using letter stamps.

They are now sat in the drying room, and we wait for them to be dry enough to fire in the next firing. Watch this space or our social media to see the finished results.

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