What's in a Blog?

I've been aware that this blog has been gradually shifting and the emphasis in the decreasing number of posts has become almost entirely on my work as an artist.  I'm not sure how this happened but I think it's been a bit of a circular thing - if I'm not writing so much I need to make sure that when I do write, at least people can keep up with what work I'm doing but much of my working life is spent doing tasks which don't change very much so there isn't anything to write about so often.  So it's time to break out and return to the original flavour of the blog.

I'm not writing for any particular audience.  I hope people will read this blog but I have no idea who they are - friends, possibly some of my customers, but also people I don't know who happen on the blog by one accidental route or another.  Whatever I put here has to be what I'm happy for the whole world to know.  Trying to balance that with what the whole world might want to know is, I think, something that's been in my mind lately and has led to the whole thing becoming a little stultified.  If I'm writing something you don't want to know, feel free to stop reading and come back another day when there's something more to your taste.

I hope to post more blogs which contain just photographs.
I may include more creative writing - if I do any!
There will be mentions of work.
I mustn't forget about food (writing about it, that is, not eating it!)
I hope to return to writing about ideas.
I'm going to write about more personal things too.



Today I went outside with my camera and the garden was not particularly promising.  However, the rosemary is looking splendid, so that's what I photographed.  Over the last ten years or so I have used herbs in cooking much more than I used to and I think I use rosemary more than any.  It may be my favourite herb.

All that glisters is not gold

 ... though some of it is.  The rest may be platinum, copper, bronze or coloured lustres.

For the second year, I've produced a limited edition range of lustred mugs.  Last year's mugs had multicoloured spots and this year I've divided the lustres up so there are two colourways - blues, greys and silver (platinum) and reds, oranges and gold.  There are two sizes of mug, extra large and small.  The mugs are available directly from me at my studio or on my stall at Stroud Farmers' Market and will be available in Arcade Artisans at the beginning of December.  I hope you like them.

I've also made more small lustred mugs in the leaf design.  Each mug is unique but you can see a common design.  Here is a small selection of them.

As a postscript, I'd like to draw your attention to the title of this post.  We don't use the word 'glisters' any more as a rule, but I still love what many see as archaic language.  It often has a beauty to it and for my money subtle but important differences in meaning which are often hard to explain.  There is a difference between 'glisters' and 'glistens', the word now usually substituted in the well-known saying.  I prefer the original.

Shakespeare, natch.

Exhibition news

Once again I'm exhibiting at The Cotswold Craftsmen Gallery, in an exhibition called, imaginatively, "CLOTH and CLAY".  It's a smallish exhibition space - what you see here is most of my exhibition - but it really suits my work.  I can display the complete mixture of what I make in a way which allows all the component elements of my artwork - ceramics, pictures, scarves, accessories and cards - to come together in a single whole.

Life is a bit difficult and stressful at the moment (hence even less blogging than usual, apologies) so I'm particularly pleased to have put together an exhibition I'm proud of.  I know most people reading this blog live too far away to visit, but don't forget you can always contact me if you want to know more about anything you see in these photos.

Yet more colour

A sneak preview of my new earrings, August 2014,  because they looked so pleasing all lined up on the rails.  I hope they'll be out for sale some time in the middle of September.

Just a reminder ...

....  that while lots of things turn me on artistically, none so much as

C O L OU R !

When I've finished making a batch of scarves I do love to see them all together.  This photo shows the scarves I've been making in the last few weeks, still needing their final wash to soften them up and restore their shape where necessary, so they're a bit creased at the moment and not arranged particularly carefully.  They're draped over the table top that I've been using to work on.

At some point after they've been washed and ironed I'll photograph them all individually and post proper photos, though this may not be for a couple of months as I still haven't found anywhere as good as my greenhouse in Stroud for good light conditions for photographing artwork.

But as a sneak preview, I can point out one or two new designs.  There's one I call eastern flames - strongly contrasting flamey/domey shapes at the ends of the scarf.  Another is black triangles - black and silver triangles against a background of huge colour triangles.  There is also dot and comma - small colourful circles against a background of huge comma and circle shapes.  And I've done quite a few entirely abstract squiggly ones. That will have to do for now!

I've packed up my work station in the cottage for this year now.  Enough scarves for the following seasons and anyway there are visitors expected in the cottage soon, to which we're looking forward.  I've been working fairly full on in order to get the scarves finished so won't worry about not doing much work for the next week or so. 

Moving on

I'm pleased to say I have moved on from the stuck place I seemed to be in for quite a while.  I'd guess that blogging and talking about it was one factor that enabled me to move on and another was that I finally got round to starting up my Etsy shop.

In case you'd like to take a look, it's   here.

I have a feeling I started this a few years ago but by the time I thought about being organised back in February, I found I wasn't allowed to call my shop ClothAndClay;  there doesn't seem to be such a shop anywhere on Etsy so I suspect that I registered with a user name and password I've long since lost track of and that yer actual ClothAndClay shop name is in fact mine.  Hence my new Etsy shop is called ClothAndClayShop.  A bit clumsy but at least I can have my ordinary banner at the top. 

At the moment I have only earrings in my Etsy shop.  This is partly because I can make them to order at fairly short notice; even in really hot weather I'd be willing to use my heatgun to make one or two items.  I daresay I'll get round to some other items eventually. 


The same day as I built my Etsy shop we also did some playing around with space and furniture to see if I could set up somewhere inside to paint scarves.  Previously when we've been here I've done them outside.  This has one or two disadvantages: you need fair weather, but in normal weather the sun is too hot and drying on the patio where I worked by about 2.00 p.m. so I was under pressure to make scarves during settled weather and every morning.  The result of setting something up inside (in the cottage which has no visitors for the next two weeks or so) is that I can work whatever the weather and I can do half an hour and then break off and leave things as well if I want.

So, I have made a couple of scarves.  Nothing startling and two scarves do not a complete inspirational recovery make, but it's a start.

Losing my way

I seem to have lost my way, big time.  For some time now I am stuck in a place where I feel I can't do any artwork.  I've been trying to pretend it isn't so, but since I don't really believe in pretence or dishonesty or whatever else you want to call it, it seems time to speak out.  I don't tend to splurge bad stuff on the internet, either here or on Facebook or anywhere else, but on the other hand this all seems important enough to write about.

The problem seems related to where I am both physically and temporally.  Physically I'm in France and temporally I'm at the point of possible semi-retirement, or at least improving the life/work balance.

I think it is the temporal stuff which is the biggest problem.  Having turned 60 I now get a small pension from the teaching work I used to do and I have promised myself and M that from this point I would work less and live more, in the work/life balance.  But I don't seem to be able to do it.  In France I can do textiles work, make accessories and greetings cards, but I can't do any pottery.  And it's the textiles work that is the problem here because I think I need to be totally immersed in it once I start.  I had an idea that I would work on the property (land clearing, maintenance painting etc) and do domestic stuff like washing and cleaning and shopping in the mornings [life] and then leave the rest of the day for textiles [work] but whenever I get to the point of starting creative work I find I can't do it. 

I can't start.  It's like I can't go through the door because if I do I'll be on the other side, the work side, and not able to get back to the life side.  So here I am, sort of attached to the door handle.  Not able to go through but not able to go back and leave the door alone.  That would mean saying that I'm basically taking a four month holiday and I don't want to do that.  Apart from implications of stock levels, I miss the buzz of being in my work. 

I have ideas.  I even have some exciting big ideas.  I got as far as phoning to ask how big the stretcher frames I use go up to.  But then when it comes to it I can't actually do the work. 

I see pictures of new work friends are making, some of them producing several new ranges in the blink of an eye ....   and I feel even more cut off, not only from their physical company but from that part of myself.   You'd think that would propel me into a place where I'd just create, but it doesn't seem to.

The only creative work I think I could do now is making accessories - both the earrings that I have been making for a while (because I am very low in stock) and new ideas I'm quite excited about.  But this work requires a heat gun or hot water and in our part of France at this time of year it's too hot.  September is the time for the heat gun, when the mornings feel a bit chilly.

In case anyone was thinking of commenting that I am being creative with photography, cooking and other things, yes I am.  But right now they're not enough.  They're not the things I really want to be doing but can't.

So, here I am, losing my way.  I daresay it will pass.  But for the time being, it's a bit grim.