​Very often a little red boat sails by our house with fishing nets and seagulls in tow. It belongs along Loch Long in Ardentinny and has been a feature of our lives here for many years and so it has of course found its way into my pottery. First thing is to roll out the clay thin enough to fit into a frame once finished. The boat and the seagulls are marked in with a knife and the waves a stamp or fabric.

 

​The pieces as you can see are laid out on plasterboard and newspaper and with another layer of paper then board on top to help them stay flat. Once dry they can go in the kiln for their first firing of 1100 degrees. I can then glaze them which is the fun bit, splashes of blues and greens along with the red of course and once fired again they can be framed and labelled and ready to go.

 

​And here’s the real thing…

 

​​

One of my favourite of Chris’s poems. I hope the pottery piece does it justice. Such hope.

 

I know longer know where swallows go in winter

Or where the wind blows

I look and seldom see the flicker of fading northern light

and now the sky is sleeping

In a nook of last year’s leaves something soft is stirring

What lies dark will find the light

The earth it is still turning.

​I might have mentioned Pauline before. I share my pottery space with Pauline. There is a story there…

​Pauline and I met through a mutual friend Angela. Pauline was running a small business at that point called Sea Drift, making beautiful hangings from beach finds all wire-wrapped and gorgeous. We became friends and shared our crafting interests to the point where we decided to set up a business together called Blue Sky Craft Workshops – we had a few years of great fun, helping people to make many kinds of lovely things – jewellery, clothing, rag-rugs, mosaics, scrapbook pictures, felting and much more. If we didn’t know how to make something we would either teach ourselves or bring in a tutor.

During this time we began to share our pottery dreams – I had once been a part of a pottery team in a centre of adults with learning disabilities although I really didn’t know much at all and Pauline had had lessons on wheel-work and really missed making pots. One day she looked on ebay out of curiosity and found a kiln at a knock-down price in Derbyshire, my home county – so my hubby (Englishman), her hubby (Scotsman) and a pal (Irishman) – you can imagine the jokes – set off to collect it for us gathering the help of many uncles to get it into the van.

It was some months before we worked out how to get the kiln down into its cellar space, but that gave us the time to get some support from Business Gateway and they helped us with costs of setting up the studio space, shelving and paint and work benches. we are very grateful for that support.

And I am grateful for having met Pauline – we have laughed and dreamed and had a go together – we work very differently and have complemented one another. We have encouraged one another to keep going when we have down days and have shared all of our ups and downs. Pauline has much more knowledge of ceramics than me and has happily shared her skills and together we have run courses for others too.

Pauline’s Sea Drift Argyll business is now mostly pottery and it is so beautiful – marine colours on terracotta clay and flowers and ferns pressed in to the clay to create gorgeous texture. She sells on Folksy and through her Facebook page.

We have recently disbanded our Blue Sky workshops and are concentrating on our own pottery businesses and our pottery workshops – do get in touch if you would like to book either or both of us. It has been really sad drawing a line under our joint venture but I look forward to seeing Pauline’s pottery develop an even wider audience especially as she is soon to be moving into her own studio space. We will still share a kiln so we’ll have to bump into one another occasionally…

 

​I have recently joined (and become hooked on) Instagram. Taking photographs of the details of my creating times, my family times and my inspirations helps me to feel connected and notice the joys of the small things, rather than whizzing by and moving on. I have to admit I do love photography anyway. It’s not a big skill of mine, but it is definitely an enjoyment. Now too it is the way to promote what you do – as someone said recently, “Do we have to be photographers too?” – I see their point but I also am glad of an excuse to snap away! Find me on Instgram as Seatreeargyll .