From as long as I can remember I have always been excited and intrigued by places to keep things. When I was 7 my parents gave me a wonderful cardboard dolls house for my birthday. I have a photograph of myself standing proudly beside it and it was almost as tall as me. I really can't express how much I adored it and part of me wishes I had it still but it was only made of cardboard and I think I wore it out! It had tiny pull-out kitchen drawers, and cupboards wardrobes and bedside tables that actually opened, and I loved to fill them up - I would make even tinier things out of twists of tissue and scraps of paper to fit inside, bringing it all to life in my imagination. I have never lost my passion for tiny things or places to keep them, so it won't come as any surprise to hear that beautiful packaging is extremely important to me. Dressing things up creates theatre and to receive a stylish box tied with ribbon with something secret hidden inside, has to be one of the most exciting things in the world. My heart definitely beats the most when I am giving a gift, but both giving and receiving are a joy and if it's dressed up for the occasion, then so much the better. A beautiful box is bound to make you feel special, even before you open it.
Finding a place
Jack Doherty's beautiful porcelain.
My daughter and I stole two sunny, blustery and blue sky days together in St Ives in September last year, just before she went back to university. The extraordinary potter, Jack Doherty, was showing his work in hidden chapels and places of refuge for fisherman all over this little Cornish town. We made a pilgrimage to all of them, to see his soda-fired porcelain Blessing Cups and Keeper Pots, all uniquely different, but similar, lined up in rows on stone windowsills or set on simple wooden boards suspended on trestles. They took my breath away, and my biggest regret is that I didn't buy one - I couldn't choose and I let that put me off - I am still cross with myself. The ones I saw were magical; they look as if they have been dug out of the earth; splashed with the sea and hurled through the sky. They are both ancient and contemporary and I wonder at his ability and skill to produce such amazing work. It helped me to understand that the singular, stand alone importance of a hand-made vessel, whatever it's colour, shape or size, is a thing of beauty. It carries the touch, integrity and handprint of its maker and is always a place to keep something precious ... or ordinary ... or just a place to keep.
Hand in hand
There is something about creating art that takes you back to childhood and there is joy in that. For me, a whole lifetime elapsed between making things out of clay as a child and making things out of clay as an adult. As a parent myself, I remember the blobby but beautiful pots that made their way home from primary school, covered in a patchy glazes and proudly carried by hot little hands. Because these pots were made by my own children I loved and adored them, but when I first started working with clay again it was hard not to ricochet critically back to imagining my pots were not a lot better than the ones I also made at school. My wonderful friends and family helped me out here - they encouraged me madly (although not always honestly when I look back at some of the very early bowls I made!) But what are friends for? And then the clay became my friend too. I started to 'feel' it, to understand where it wanted to go and to respect it. To know how much pressure it could take when I was working on it, to know when to stop, when to give up completely or risk losing the piece, when to press on regardless and when to come back to it. Friendships take work and the clay is no different; we spend a lot of time together and our friendship has grown. It is about a 'knowing', something you can't really put into words, but it is precious - as all my friendships are - to me.
The Clay Doctor
I've been very lucky so far on my clay journey. I was given a kiln out of the blue which was the greatest gift I could ever have received and the man who came to service it from SM and K Ltd in Cornwall turned out to be a passionate potter disguised as a fairy godmother. He had so much knowledge, patience and encouragement for this 'potter with L plates' that I don't think I could ever repay him even if I made him a sixty-piece dinner service (lined with gold). The 'Clay Doctor' has helped me to find the right porcelain, the lustres and the golds, the platinums and the mother of pearls. He has guided me with my orders and listened endlessly to me as I asked the same questions over and over again and wittered on about kiln temperatures and soak times, bungs and batts, elements and cones as I learned this new complicated language. I must have driven him mad, but if I have, he has never shown it. Simon - I am indebted to you and I salute you and by the way ... can I just ask...? Only joking!
Treasure chest
Ask any potter how they feel when they open the kiln after a firing, and I’m certain everyone would tell you that they lift the lid with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. There are so many things that can go wrong; something may have exploded spreading shards of fired clay all over everything or, in the case of a glaze firing, the colours and finishes may have ended up a million miles away from what you hoped for, or imagined. I fire my bowls three times and the final firing is to add the lustre, gold, platinum or mother of pearl, so there's plenty of room for disaster. I tried all sorts of combinations of temperatures and finishes and nothing had quite produced the gold I was looking for, until this happy day when I lifted the lid to see a whole shelf full of pure bright gold, shining up at me like treasure in a chest!
Perfectly imperfect
If anyone asks me what my star sign is my heart always slightly sinks because, whisper it, 'I'm a Virgo', and yes, I am a perfectionist. I'd be fibbing if I said I didn't like order and straight lines, and I can hang a picture right in the middle of a wall entirely by eye, so why then do I love irregularity when it comes to my own work? I enjoy the challenge of throwing on the wheel; centering the clay, adding speed and water and hoping for the appearance of a good-looking bowl, mug or dish, but what I end up with always seems to be broadly similar, and the possibility of unique shape, form and style has, so far, eluded me. For me there is a particular beauty in hand building porcelain. It really likes to do its own thing; a crooked edge, a dent, a bump, a twist here, a turn there, all imperfections really, but oh so energetic and so individual. It's my thing you see - every piece is perfectly imperfect - and that's a bit of an eye opener for a Virgo like me.
The clay is in charge
One of the most exciting - but sometimes frustrating - things about working with clay, is that it has a life of its own and the outcome really isn't up to me. I always start out hoping it will behave itself and do what I want it to do - turn into a bowl or a sculpture or a vase maybe - but whether it will go there remains to be seen. Some of the pieces I have made that I like the most have ended up a million miles away from what I originally intended. Hard to believe now but this dish was meant to be a vase ... I began with a large chunk of porcelain and a pretty fixed idea in my mind. It was going to be tall and willowy, very stylish, pure white and probably end up full of peonies ... but the clay just refused to do it. It wouldn't go 'up', it just wanted to go 'out' and at times like these there is always a moment when you have to concede and say 'OK, you win' and then let go and see where the clay takes you. As it happens, I'm pleased this quirky little dish appeared because I rather like it! It won't hold a peony, but it will hold some Easter eggs, and there's always tomorrow for that vase; but of course there's no guarantee...
Clay magic
I was looking for something new to do about 2 years ago when I heard about a local clay group. Just five women, meeting one night a week for a couple of hours and messing about with clay. It sounded right up my street. No pressure to produce amazing work, or anything at all in fact, the chance to meet some new people and a return to a material that I had first worked with when I was 12 and which I hadn't touched since. It's going to sound corny but the moment I pulled a piece of cold wet clay out of the bag and held it in the palm of my hand I knew this was my thing. I stared at it in surprise because I hadn't expected it, and it felt like a homecoming.