The Pottery Blog

Decided to make some more plates for our own use at home, which I threw last weekend and turned during the week. Ready to bisque fire, so thought that I would try to use the plate stands that we "acquired" from a nearby potter who was retiring. Never used them before, so a bit of an experiment. Seemed to have the right size for the small plates, but nothing big enough for the large ones - or did I just make them a bit overly large!

Only problem was that when I got to load the small kiln, having loaded all the small plates one per shelf to avoid warping, I did not have enough space to fit the plate rack, so resorted back to several small plates per shelf. Ah well, at least I know know how to assembly them for next time......

Well, we've been quite busy, but not actually making any pottery, just improving the facilities for ourselves and our students. First of all came the full plasterboard ceiling, to stop all the heat escaping into the loft. Pinted white to help reflect the light and lighten the room, and then some new "daylight" high frequency flourescent lights added give excellent light for detailed work. On new bright pottery room!

And then, to make sure that eveyone is toasted and warm, a second wood burning stove in the large pottery room, to replace the not so nice gas heaters - also much safer - worrying incident when Phoebe the labrador set light to her tail recently whilst happily wagging in front of the gas fire - panic ensued and a rapid bit of extinguishing....

OK.

I admit that we have not been very good at writing up regular blog entries.

The blogging system we were trying to use was not as easy as it is supposed to be.... especially when you wanted to add pictures. Even the software suppliers had problems getting to work!

Anyhow... I have now set us up on a brand new, bigger and better blogging system, with a Pottery Blog, plus a brand new Chicken blog, about our brood of Bantams & rescue chickens. Look forward (hopefully!) to more regular write-ups from us!

OK, So I know that us poor potters get excited about strange things, but we have just received delivery of our new combined caly mixer/pugmill from Peter Pugger in the USA. We fist saw one of these at Deborah Baynes in Suffolk, and always remebered how she raved about it. Well..... we now understand why. The joys of feeding clay into it, without having to soak it down and then recondition it on plaster bats, and having it thoroughly mix and pud without any force being applied whatsoever as just wonderful. Suzanne spent a whole day recycling clay because Sir Bob is so wonderful - normally the least favourite job in the Pottery. And the clay comes out fully de-aired, and pretty much perfect in texture. If you leave it to mix for about 15 minutes, it even warms the clay up for you - may not be an issue in October, but in the midst of winter we all know the joys of getting clay out of the bag freezing cold for wedging and throwing!

So why "Sir Bob" - well these are not the cheapest of puggers, and is a bit of a luxury for us. My father, Bob, passed away a couple of years ago and left us a little bit of money. Now we are investing more of our own time in developing the pottery, something he always encouraged us to do, we decided that he would approve of us investing the money in some studio equipment - he always liked mechanical gadgets as well, always buying new power tools and attachements for the workshop. So now our new Pugger is formally known as Sir Bob, in his memory. Photo coming soon, when I work out how to correctly add a photo to my blog!

Yes, today we have launched our brand new, and improved (we hope!) website. Please let us know if you have any problems with the web-site and we will try to improve it (within the limits of our web-skills and knowledge......)