Open studio and aftermath

On the way to the studio open day I took a moment to photograph the "golden garden" -

 ... and the gingko tree that produced the shower of gold ...

 ... and the leaves themselves ...

 ... and to pick up some of them to fill the empty spaces on the wall (and counteract those fuse boxes) -

Many visitors throughout the day, and good conversations -

 And a few quiter moments -

Thanks to Brenda for this photo -

Talking about the pots again and again has had the "I know what I think when I hear myself talk" effect, and the way forward is clear.

But first we have to restore the working capacity of the studio - and that means retrieving ever so many items from the kiln room, where they quietly lurked.

At home, I'll be divinding "studio time" between sewing up some new pots and making space in the home studio. All the cleaning activity at Studio 6 has got me in the mood for some "spatial revision" in my crowded rooms.

Studio Saturday - open studio prep

The week has been one of deep cleaning, much tidying, and rearrangements as we prepare for the Open Studio - which happens today, Saturday 24 November!

For the first day of the cleanup everything was taken off the shelves and moved into the centre of the room

 The kiln room got a thorough going-over  and sorting out -

I started to build my temporary shelving -

 he second day, things started to move away from the centre of the room, as if by magic -

 and it became possible to set up work in our spaces -

 I added quite a few fabric pots to the ceramic ones -

 and made sure the mirrored shelf was securely wedged -

 Others' work seemed less inconvenient to display -

 At the end of the day, things looked more or less ready -

 with a few quirky corners -

Here there be monsters!

(not really)

and a kiln room that's rapidly filling up with tools and furniture that needs to be kept out of the way -

It was a pleasure to see my pots in the window -

Next day, further cleaning of studio and refinement of arrangements. Arrival of ingredients for mulled wine and bags of nibbles. Decisions about pricing if work is for sale.

I gilded some more of the broken pots - but have no photos. Something that needs doing immediately on arrival at the studio this morning. I'd found other pots at home to bring to the studio, like this set of five tinies (max 2") -

In the quiet of the late afternoon, a chance take unhurried photos...

On the way home I toyed with the idea of making some books to be sold at under a fiver, and by 11pm a dozen dos-a-dos books were ready. They have an extra page of double-sided images cut from art magazines - finding these and cutting them carefully to size is what took the longest in the process. Time-wise, there's a lot of work gone into these -

Telephone directory as impromptu punching cradle

Final task for the morning would have been to print some business cards - but the printer has decided not to allow this.

Poetry Thursday - excerpt from In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred Lord Tennyson

In Memoriam Section CXXIII

There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
      O earth, what changes hast thou seen!
      There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.

The hills are shadows, and they flow
      From form to form, and nothing stands;
      They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

But in my spirit will I dwell,
      And dream my dream, and hold it true;
      For tho' my lips may breathe adieu,
I cannot think the thing farewell.

      - Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) (via)

The poem came to me through the taking of a long-unconsulted volume (if a paperback can be called a "volume") off the shelf and flicking through, looking for something short and interesting, at the end of the day.

I was delighted to find a four-leaf clover, and also a memory, of going to the book launch, in 1984 -

What further poems of Science have been written since then - nearly 35 years ago - much has happened, after all!

Woodblock Wednesday

Slow progress, but some weeks are like that. It would be good to have a printing session between classes, but ahead of the Open Studio this Saturday, pots get priority.

The aim was to print a double-height piece (40cm) with my 20-cm blocks, using the fuzzy edged effect on both sides of the central circles.

The clear prints of the previous week proved hard to get. I was using different "rice" paper, and after a couple of exposured to the nori and colour on the block, some of the surface of the paper stayed behind on the block. I tried taking any excess nori/colour off the block with light pressure on waste paper before doing the actual printing, but that didn't really help -

 Overprinting with a different shade of grey made it more interesting -

 And adding the circles made a big difference! -

 I wondered if the prints could be used in some combination with my pots -

Drawing Tuesday - V&A

Up in the furniture department, the 'Arabesque' table caught my eye -

 ... and it caught Carol's eye too, along with a curvy bookshelf -

 Janet K concentrated on chairs -

... as did Sue -

 ... and Najlaa -

Several extra-curricular activities by Najlaa, including a fortunate find of a necklace in a charity shop that resembles one she was drawing recently -

 Janet K had been to the Oceania exhibition -

 and Joyce was inspired by Tracey Bush's discarded-packaging flowers -