Cowal Open Studios happens every year in the last weekend of September. we have taken part for a few years and enjoy it every year. The dining room becomes a display space. The pottery and woodshed get a big tidy up. Folks drift in over the four days that it runs but with thirty-nine artists people can’t get to every studio. The Cowal Open Studios team work so hard for many months every year putting together routes for people to follow and the beautiful brochure and website.

Some people that arrive really wish to see the work-spaces – getting to see behind the scenes, where the craft happens. Some people are less interested and really want to see and maybe buy the finished articles. Either way it leads to interesting conversations, catching up with local folks or meeting people who have travelled across Scotland or even internationally. Some people exchange their own crafting stories and some want to sit and drink tea and enjoy the view. By the end of the four days we are usually whacked but fulfilled.

It may be that you can’t plan to be here in beautiful Cowal for our Open Studios but I would highly recommend finding your own in your area. It is great to meet artists, get a sneaky look behind the scenes and meet other folks travelling your way. It’s the only downside of doing our own – we miss all of that!

​I’ll not be drowning today. I love this poem by Chris. Clinging on, getting through with just enough hope to see you through. There is a quote isn’t there by Francis of Assisi – all the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of one single candle. Or words to that effect. It is one of the things I have loved doing recently, taking Chris’s poetry and letting it take shape and come to life on the clay. Here is a bowl I made as part of the collection. Here it is first made…

​I used a ceramic mould and so the clingfilm is to prevent the bowl I am making form sticking and then losing its shape when I remove it. Once the clay is in its mould and all smoothed out and the edges trimmed and smoothed, I can begin to put the words in. This is just a part of this poem… water in the eyes – the river grey again – as another squall rolls in from the sea – an incongruous splash of partial rainbow… I’ll not be drowning today. The bluey grey splodges are called slip – watered down clay with oxides added. I made the lines, splodges and spots with a ‘slip trailer’ like a balloon you fill with slip and squeeze… great fun!

​This is the bowl once it has had its first (biscuit) firing. No going back…

​And this is the finished bowl – black oxide help the letters to stand out and gives the pale blue a greyish tint especially around the edges which I love. Underneath is a rich, dark green. I am having fun exploring different shapes and lines. I am hoping with this bowl that your eye is drawn in to the swirl into the centre of the bowl…

If you are a Facebook follower of all things arty, please do check us out – Sea Tree – find us on Facebook! We post photos on there of ongoing pieces of work, inspiration, behind the scenes shots and some more random things along the way. Just now there is a ‘giveaway’. I can’t say ‘something for nothing’ as you would need to comment in order to be entered into the prize draw, but it might be worth it! It helps me to get feedback and know what it is that folks enjoy.

We have been making some wee tiles – experimenting with style and shapes, glazes and oxides – all the fun things about pottery! They will be for sale soon at a local craft fair, but I didn’t want any blog readers to miss out on a free deal!

​I offered to make a couple of hundred wedding favours for my niece and her fiance as our wedding gift to them – they wanted half for women (ceramic hearts) and half for the men (shortbread). Here is how they came along (the hearts, that is… the shortbread, well, that’s another story!)

​First of all is preparing and rolling out the clay into even slabs and cutting out the shapes. Leftover clay can be kneaded and rolled out again until all the hearts are cut out. It’s not  the pretty part of the making – sticky hands and dirty cloths…

​The next step is to make the wee holes, smooth the edges and the surfaces of the hearts. It is a very therapeutic process as it can’t be riushed for fear of mis-shaping the hearts. By the way, do you recognise the crochetting? It comes in very useful!

​This was the design that Lily chose from a few samples I sent to her. The theme of the wedding was spring yellows and flowers, cream teas and bunting so the lace and the colours will reflect that. Time for the hearts to be dried and I keep them flat between two pieces of plasterboard.

​Here are some of the hearts stacked in the kiln ready for firing, along with a few other bits and pieces. In a ‘biscuit’ firing (the first firing) pieces can touch one another, so I can load up the kiln nicely. This is one shelf near the top of the kiln. Then start the first of the long waits – a good twenty-four hours.  This whole thing can’t be hurried – especially not for a wedding! Before glazing all the hearts, I did a few samples to see how many layers of each glaze worked best. Eventually, I got to glaze them all, and after a couple more firings, here they are with their pretty ribbon attached.

Here’s to the rest of your wedded lives, Lily and Tom! May you also learn patience and find joy!

​I thought I would share with you some of the magic of pottery. Even by showing and telling, the magic will remain. watching the clay go from a cold, damp material to a finished colourful piece… Read more below…

​The first part of the process is to prepare the clay. It is cold and slightly damp when it comes out of the bags it is delivered in, but soon warms to the touch. The clay has to be kneaded, a bit like bread – the reason being to get rid of air bubbles and to make the clay useable. The air bubbles if left in can cause destruction in the kiln as the air expands in the heat and explodes, taking with it all the other pieces round-about. Not a pretty sight… Once the clay is kneaded it can be used on the wheel or for hand-building. Here you can see I have rolled out some clay and cut some shapes – the rolling pin and cutter are typical kitchen items but the knife is a pottery knife, at a slightly different angle to usual knives. The clay is rolled out on cloths or it would stick to the worktop.

​While the clay is still wet, slip and texture can be added. I make the fish eyes with the end of a kiddie’s paintbrush, then add the pattern by using the crocheted doily – pressing it in to the clay creates a beautiful pattern which is then highlighted with coloured slip – a watered down clay to which colour is added using chemicals. Maybe you think the doily is too pretty for getting so dirty but I can’t resist using it!

​The fish then need to dry. Once the clay is dry it can’t be re-shaped so while it is still wet I shape it. If the pieces are to be flat then I would put some plasterboard on top to keep it flat while it dries, but I like the fish to have some shape, so I lay them out with little pieces of sponge or newspaper to give them curves. It might take a day or two, or for bigger pieces a week or two, to dry out enough. Things can’t go into the kiln until they are dry – they would break if they still had moisture in them. Wait, wait…

​Once dry they can be fired – another wait while the kiln reaches the right temperature – maybe 1000 degrees or 1200 degrees depending on which clay and glaze I have used. Then another anxious wait while the kiln cools… usually the next day. Then the coloured glazes and oxides can be added. By now the clay is light and hard, like the  half-glazed fish in the picture. The sponge is used to wipe off excess glaze or to deliberately remove layers of glaze to reveal texture beneath.  The glazes and oxides don’t always look the way they will once fired – it’s a trial and error process, and test pieces are needed so I can remember how the pale blue above turns into a rich a mottled sea-blue…

​If the fish are glazed on both sides for the shoals they have to be hung up to dry. That’s when my fellow potter, Pauline, walks in to the pottery and knocks them off their drying points as she is taller than me. The surviving fish can then go back in the kiln for another day of firing and waiting. If they are only glazed on one side they can go straight onto the kiln shelf, so long as the shelf has been protected with batt wash. If they have glaze round the edges they have to be lifted onto little stilts, or like the fish above they need to be hung on little racks to as to lift them above the shelves.  The kiln goes on again and that’s when more magic happens with glazes reacting to the heat and to other glazes and to their position in the kiln… Wait, wait again…

​Once the pieces are out of the kiln, often still warm to the touch as I am so impatient, they need to be finished and assembled. Any drops of glaze need to be removed from the kilns shelves, or splinters from the backs of pieces. The fish are then mounted on driftwood clocks made by Chris, or into frames and mounted on materials I paint with sea colours. At least for this bit I get to sit in the dry, warm dining room. Here is one of the finished pieces…