My first commission in January this year to make 10 gold lined bowls for a friend of a friend in Winchester, was really the beginning. As I made the bowls for her my clever son designed and made my website for me and I decided how to package my work and created a business card; it was exciting and I suddenly had a reason to apply all my business and PR skills (from another life!) to the process. It has been a busy year; working in platinum was next and these lustres are notoriously tricky to handle. There is a lot of trial and error and it's very hard when a piece I particularly love doesn't make it to the end of the line - perhaps it will crack in one of its three firings or the glaze won't take properly - it's always hard to accept, but I move on quickly now. A few days ago I really did put my head above the parapet by taking a stand at Kite Studios Christmas Fair in West London. As I carefully unwrapped my bowls and sculptures for the display, I was struck by the familiarity of their individual shapes, curves and idiosyncrasies. It was as if I had made them that morning, and as people chose and bought them, and I packaged them carefully in their boxes, I found myself saying a silent goodbye to each piece as if it was an old friend. This time last year I was just beginning to work with porcelain and lustres and now, 12 months later, complete strangers will be receiving my gold and platinum bowls on Christmas morning, chosen just for them. I honesty could not be more amazed or proud.
Sharing inspiration
Just before October half term, with my children's author hat on, I spent a day at Christow Primary School in the Teign Valley. Over the summer holidays, an amazing team of builders, parents, teachers and helpers had built a fabulous new library from scratch for these lucky children. I was very honoured to be invited to run a day of creative writing workshops with each year group; we made books, read stories and created characters, and then they asked me to open the library, packed with parents, teachers and excited children, at the end of the school day, it was a really special occasion. When I got home there was a parcel waiting for me from America - inside was a second-hand pottery book published in 1986 that I hadn't been able to find here, and as soon as I opened it, I saw it was an ex-library book from a public library in Michigan. I was touched by the synchronicity and it felt wonderfully apt that I had spent the day with a brave school determined to keep the magic of creativity, imagination and words alive against the odds for all their children, only to find myself, standing in my hall, still with my coat on, holding an old out of print library book that had just arrived in the post. It's scuffed and well worn which tells me that it has been read by many people. It has been chosen, taken home to be poured over and then returned for others to enjoy. Perhaps because of its history it feels as if I am just a custodian of this well travelled book, and not its owner, and when the time is right I know I will pass it on. Inspiration is more than doubled when shared.
Lucky in love
Recently we were visiting some old friends in London and, as they were asking me about my porcelain, I felt the palms of my hands change and I just yearned to hold some clay. This isn't the first time this has happened and it makes me realise how much I love this stuff and how important it has become to me. Porcelain is quite cold and lifeless when you first pull it out of its bag but as soon as you begin to work it it comes alive, becomes warm and pliable and smooth and feels just beautiful; the result of a sort of alchemy between the earth and human touch. Maybe it's because it comes from the earth that it makes me feel grounded but, whatever is happening in my life, within minutes of holding it, I feel back on course. I'm a hand-builder and I usually start by holding a ball of clay in the palm of my left hand. I press my right thumb or index finger into the middle of this ball and begin to pull the clay up into a bowl shape. I never know what will appear but therein lies the joy of the whole thing. I'm passionate about working with clay and I feel very lucky to be doing something I love so much.
Old friends
Bunnykins
Perhaps it's because my daughter has just gone back to university for her final year that I sense change is really coming now and I can't slow it down; it's the end of something and the beginning of something new. Trying to keep myself busy I decided to sort through some old boxes in the garage, but I didn't get further than the first box which was full of my children's drawings; each one as familiar today as if it had been handed to me for the first time only minutes ago. So special. I'm so glad I kept them. Next came little fat painty hand-prints on card with tiny swinging calendars hanging beneath, first stabs at writing, 'golden gang' certificates, a scruffy cub sweatshirt, covered in very badly sewn on badges (I never could sew), and primary school reports, predicting with uncanny accuracy, each child's passion and possible future direction - they were so little then, how could they have known? At the very bottom of the box was a familiar shape wrapped in newspaper. I was so happy to see it again. This worn and faded old friend was with us through every minute of those early years - and my husband's early years as well. As I held this precious bowl in my hands the memories flooded back, all our homes in London and Devon, teatimes, highchairs, broccoli wars, birthdays, tears, giggles, tantrums, joy - it holds all the stories. Old and scuffed it may be but we will never part with it.
Dancing with colour and light
My little piece of Murano
I'm not usually one for the "tourist trail" but recently we visited the tiny island of Murano near Venice and, as we got off the ferry, we were accidentally caught up in a large group of other tourists and herded into the workshop of a glass factory. We soon realised there was no escape and as our eyes became accustomed to the darkness, a very elderly gentleman, who must have been in his eighties, stepped out of the shadows. He acknowledged us with a nod and went to choose a long hollow metal pole from a large selection leaning up against the wall. He dipped the end of it into the blazing furnace to gather up a lump of liquid glass and then began to turn the pole in his hands. Dancing on light feet, like a man half his age, he began to rotate the pole, back and forth, back and forth, blowing down it for a moment to create the shape he wanted from the glowing molten orb, which expanded with his breath as he swung it about, but always moving and swaying as if to music only he could hear. As it grew he dipped it into trays of tiny coloured glass pieces which dissolved instantly, adding swirls of vibrant colour, then he sat for a moment and lifted his ancient pear wood tools out of a bucket of water. They hissed and smoked as he held them to the glass ball he had created, cooling and shaping it by hand now but still moving the pole to keep everything fluid before expertly blowing one last time to expand it into the exact size he wanted. He pulled out a short stem with callipers before clamping it delicately with another tool, marking it with a knife and breaking it off the pole in exactly the right place. Then he added another piece of molten glass to create the base and suddenly there it was, an exquisite Murano Vase dancing with colour and light. It had taken him less than five minutes from start to finish to make something utterly beguiling from a lump of molten glass. How thrilled I was to have unexpectedly seen this magical act of brilliant craftsmanship. We clapped and cheered and he gave us a small humble bow as the furnaces spat curls of orange fire, inviting him to do it again.
Hide and seek
So ... and this is quite a big thing ... I've changed my name. Well not really! I'm just being myself now. I was too scared to call myself Penny Little Ceramics when I set up my website at the beginning of this year so I chose 'Little Earth' to hide behind. I told myself it had 'Little' in it so I was half way there but if I had started out as me I might not have been brave enough to try Facebook or Instagram or write my blog. I was entering a whole new world and 'Little Earth' allowed me to experiment freely with my work, pictures and words, and to find my voice. But now I need to stand up and be counted amongst all the other artists, painters, sculptors, potters and creatives out there who are brave enough to say, 'this is me, and this is what I make' and so that means using my own name from now on. It's who I am after all, and porcelain is what I do. www.pennylittleceramics.com
Softness and weight
Living in South Devon with so many beautiful beaches to choose from, I have always been amazed by the vast differences in types of stone or pebble on each one. The beaches might only be a few miles apart but they all have their own signature. Bending down to pick up a pebble that then fits perfectly into my palm, or running thousands of tiny stones through my fingers, as I sit and chat with family and friends, has never lost its appeal; the colours, textures, shapes and sizes still delight. The wide, long and endlessly sandy beaches of my childhood in Yorkshire were washed by the freezing North Sea. Stones were thin on the ground there unless you were into collecting granite slabs - my brothers and I became experts in digging holes and burying each other up to the neck in sand instead, largely to keep warm, if I remember rightly. Later, the craggy dark stones on the Jurassic Coast took on a different and more urgent purpose - we never considered their shape or size or beauty, in fact we never gave them a second glance, we cracked them open mindlessly hoping they would share their hidden secrets with us. Then, one summer on the island of Ithaka in Greece when my own children were small, we stumbled upon a tiny beach covered in large, perfectly round, snowy white pebbles rubbed smooth by the Ionian Sea. I found them exquisitely beautiful and I have never forgotten the way they felt in my hands, a strange combination of softness and weight. I'm sure that if we could have seen inside them they would have been full of gold.
Face to face
I love very old family photographs and I'm always on the lookout for individual characteristics that I might see in my own family; the particular tilt of my grandfather's head that I see in my son or the way my great grandmother's hands rest in her lap like mine do. These personal attributes link all of us together across the generations. But old photographic portraits can only tell part of a story, they cannot convey the shape or size of a person or the sense of them as they stood on the earth. Last year I signed up for a course to learn how to make portraits out of clay. It was run by the brilliant Portrait Sculptor, Luke Shepherd, and I was amazed at the process. Luke is immensely skilled and we all learned incredibly quickly that it is a huge undertaking to create a head that is even remotely accurate. The key is to measure, measure and measure again and not to be too precious about building up the clay - the fine tuning can come later. When we arrived for the course on the Friday evening there was nothing in the room except six stands - one for each of us - and, piled dauntingly on a table in the corner, 10 large plastic bags full of white stoneware clay. When we left on the Sunday afternoon the bags of clay were empty and in their place were six heads; all slightly different interpretations of our young male model, but all beautiful, and all capturing the essence of him far more interestingly than a photograph ever could. The whole process felt ancient and important to me and I felt very moved and honoured to have had this experience; to have had the opportunity to create a portrait of a person in clay! How wonderful is that?
Holding steady
It can be hard to hold steady right now in such an unsteady world and it suddenly dawned on me at the weekend that I hadn't made anything out of clay for over a week. Then on Saturday our little clay group met for a whole day of clay-making. We had arranged it months ago with the fanciful idea of working outside in the July sunshine but of course that was out of the question; it poured with rain pretty much all day and it was so cold that I wore what amounted, quite honestly, to winter clothes, but I soon began to feel warm inside. It felt like a port in a storm, a moments respite from a stormy sea. I was very pleased to be there; to catch up on the minutiae of three other lives, to share the delicious food we all brought for lunch, and to be burying my hands once more in the clay, tuning out of the everyday, and waiting to see what appeared. I started out with a plan to make something big and ended up making something small, but I know I felt grounded, and bounded, once again to the clay and to the earth, which felt as if it steadied itself, and me ... for a little while anyway.
Teamwork
A box of snakes
Potting is quite a solitary profession but I'm used to working on my own and relying on myself. Recently the heating elements had to be replaced in the kiln. They had been playing up for a while creating annoying random pockets of heat, and then cooler areas, as they limped along on their last legs. All glazes need an even temperature to get the best possible results and I know these smart new coils of heat will make a big difference. As the kiln experts and fitters, Simon and Steve, headed back to Cornwall with the old elements rustling around in their car boot like a box of dusty snakes, I realised that actually I'm not alone; there is a whole team of people helping me behind the scenes. There are the people who make the clays and porcelains, the technicians who create the glazes and lustres and lastly, the delivery drivers who bring everything to me in Devon all the way from the potteries in Staffordshire. I have never met any of these clever people, and they have never seen what I do with all their lovely materials, but we are still a team and that's a good feeling.
Body
Idonia Van Der Bilj (pictured above)
If you talk to pottery experts they will often refer to the clay as 'body'. It's an odd word for a material that can be as fine as it can be heavy, but as you touch it, and work with it, and it takes shape, it kind of makes sense. It's nothing and then it's something. It fills an empty space with something solid, hopefully beautiful and possibly useful. Before I became a potter I never really thought about ceramics and how they were made, other than finding certain shapes pleasing and others less so. I aways loved hand made pieces though and many years ago, even though I really couldn't afford it, I collected the work of ceramicist Idonia Van Der Bilj who had a shop in Columbia Road, East London. Her bright blue palette and yellow flag irises still excite me, and over the years they have become an important part of the fabric of our family life, but I was young when I bought them and I really didn't appreciate how much work was involved in each piece. Now my eyes are opened to the incredible skill and imagination potters have and I can totally see why some potters become so collectable - hand crafted pottery is such a creative form; telling stories and eliciting emotions. Each piece leaves something of the maker within it, an essence of them and for a moment, as you pick it up to hold it for the first time, their hand slides into yours.
Silver linings
The very first bowls I made out of stoneware were like broken eggshells, tiny, jagged and fragile - looking back, they were an uncannily accurate reflection of how I felt about myself at the time. I liked to make small things I could hold in my hand - the way they felt and fitted cosily into my palm was important to me - it was kind of comforting. I made quite a lot of these little bowls and glazed them white inside because that seemed like the obvious thing to do. Then I lined them up and there they sat, a sad little row of forlorn and abandoned broken eggs. I knew we both needed something more to bring us alive, but I didn't know what that might be. A few weeks later I came across some old sheets of silver leaf in a box full of crafty bits and pieces we always dug out to make cards at Christmas and I peeled one off its fragile paper backing and stuck it down inside one of the bowls, I couldn't believe the transformation. My downhearted little broken eggshell had changed into something uplifting, tactile, dancing with light and energy and it filled my heart with joy. It was a timely reminder to me that there is always a silver lining to be found in everything, even if you put it there yourself.
Social media for ostriches
Here's a confession - I'm really quite shy - and because of this I've always buried my head in the sand and completely avoided anything at all to do with social media. When I started my business, my lovely and generous friend Katie Whitehouse - super star of all things 'internetty' - regularly told me that now I had something to say and something to show, I should be 'out there', but still I resisted. Then one day, a couple of months ago, I took a deep breath and together Katie and I made a Facebook page. I spent most of the following week almost hyperventilating and completely avoiding the new 'f' icon on my iPad and iPhone in case anyone had looked at my page or, even worse, commented! I was barely over the shock of that first enormous step before I got my next instructions, "Now you're going to write a blog for your website" she said, "it's time to tell your stories, and by the next time we meet I want you to have written three." THREE? I wasn't even sure I could write ONE. But I was beginning to realise there was no escape from this social media guru so I gave it a go and very soon I remembered that as well as being a potter, I was once a writer too, and I really enjoyed it. "Well done" she said, the next time we met ... but before I could relax she was off again; "Now we're going to share your first blog on Facebook." "We are?" I squirmed, "Yes, we are" she said. So we did and then people began to like it and comment on it and share it and I couldn't believe it. A couple of weeks later we met again; "I think I quite like this Facebook thing" I told her. "That's good" she laughed, "because now it's time for Instagram." And so it was. And of course there was absolutely no point in coming up with excuses anymore, about being shy or anything else, because even though social media is another world with another language, I get the point of it now. And you don't say no to someone who is so incredibly patient, knowledgable, encouraging and clever at it, that they can even teach ostriches how to do it; you lift your head out of the sand, and bow to them instead.
Dressing up
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...