Our assistant and encourager, the lovely Karen.

Karen, we may have mentioned before, has been helping us out at seatree for coming up for two years. In that time, she has grown in confidence and skill. But all the time has been encouraging and cheerful – seeing us though an exhibition, shop orders and Potfest as well as a few Open Studios.

Michaela met Karen at a couple of community workshops and could see that she had a feel for the clay and a head full of ideas so invited her to come and help out in exchange for some pottery time of her own. It works well. Every hour that Karen helps out, with recycling clay, loading the kiln, tidying, making pots and glazing, or wrapping up orders, she gets an hour to get creative with clay herself, and gets her pieces fired for her. We don’t measure the cost of anything except the time. It puts us on a level playing field, an hour for an hour.

Karen can do so much more now than before, when helping us. Sometimes she has a better way of doing things that works. And she can tidy the drying room like it never gets tidied otherwise. But what’s been amazing to see is how her pottery has developed – she is very bold with colour and design, as you can see from these images. She is now starting to sell in shops and galleries too, which is so exciting and we feel so privileged to see how she is doing.

Please do check out her instagram and facebook feeds – Karen Middleton Ceramics. You’ll be glad you did.

This piece was made for a lovely and very patient customer this summer after she saw one of our poetry people pieces on instagram and loved the words in one of Chris’s poems. It was for her husband and was a surprise gift with a special story.

I made the wee poetry people very loosely based on a photo she sent to me, so the height and hair were along the right lines. I’m no sculptor so couldn’t promise a likeness, but wanted them to reflect the lovely couple. Unfortunately, and you learn lessons all the time, she had quoted the first line of the poem so the first one I made just had that line, but it was the whole poem that she wanted so it got remade. Lesson learned, always double check I understand a customer fully before launching in. Once the customer finally received the piece, she sent me a lovely photo of it in place in their home. I love making things that have a meaning and Chris’s poetry brings words of hope, comfort, challenge, joy…

It was Cowal Open Studios recently and it was so lovely sharing conversations with people about what they saw in the words and images in our ceramic pieces. Thank you everyone for being a part of the seatree story with us. It keeps us going.

Every now and then, I make something I really like. This is one of them. It sold at Potfest earlier this year. I’d love to see where it went. It is one of my favourite poems by Chris and I’ve also been wanting to have a play at making something larger and also try incorporating some nails into the clay – weird, I know – but I think it worked. It’s another team effort –  as well as writing the original poem, Chris also framed the piece. He now has the garage set up fr framing. nobody uses their garage for cars, do they?

I’d love the challenge of another large scene – why not send me a photo of your favourite place and I’ll see what I can do?

I first made a small version of this bowl for our exhibition – ‘Where the Streams Come From’ – to represent the support and encouragement I had had from so many people during the process of doing our first exhibition – much more stressful than I had imagined. Without people’s support, it wouldn’t have happened.

The bowl sold but I was encouraged to make more by customers who had missed the opportunity at the exhibition. Like everything we make, every one is different, but the style remains the same – a bowl made to be held in one or both hands, with the word ‘held’ imprinted in and two lines that cross and connect around the bowl.

Some things we make seem to resonate with others and although we don’t always know what that connection might be, we feel humbled that our words and clay can bring some peace or joy express something meaningful.