Greenhouse project - concrete

I'm sorry I won't be here today; I'm working at the Arts and Crafts Centre.  I've never actually seen premixed concrete being delivered and worked on and would very much have liked to.  And it's my greenhouse, my garden, my pottery the concrete is surrounding.  And I'd have liked to take pictures, for the record. But there we are.  The concrete will be here this morning but I won't.

The site is prepared.  Water and electricity emerge from the garage and will then go underground and re-appear in the greenhouse in each 'room'.

In front of the pottery (the building that may remind you of a garage) a retaining wall has been built so that the ground just in front can be level enough to wheel a ware trolley out to dry pots in the sun.

Behind the pottery (beside the new fence panels) the path will end up higher but level with the pottery floor, as it will be all round.

And over the main area is laid pig wire to reinforce the concrete.
Voila!

You can probably see now why I have been describing this as so much more than a greenhouse project.

A time of contrasts

A long time ago I promised to put up some pictures and write about Going Solo, my first solo exhibition.  It's now a month after the exhibition finished though it seems longer.  I've always enjoyed taking photographs and do actually look at them again, even those from forty years ago.  These photos are only a month old but already I need them to keep the exhibition fresh in my memory.

It was a lovely place to exhibit, having perfectly white walls, picture rails all round, large blank spaces so I could arrange the work however I wanted and plenty of white shelves and plinths.

It was especially nice to be able to arrange little groups of work.  Being short of space on the card stand I displayed some cards with the wallhangings that they were photos of and this really added something to the colour groupings.

It was also good to have the blue slip design, with its seagulls and fish, near the two remaining water bird hangings in their own self-contained corner.  The pottery design arrived the same year as the hangings and they were all very much inspired by the same sorts of ideas.

But that was then. Since then (in fact since just before the exhibition started) I have, as I've said before, been very involved in the new Gloucestershire Arts and Crafts Centre and this has given me an interesting perspective on the exhibition. 

I'm struck by the contrast between my first solo exhibition and the work I've been doing on what is above all a group venture.  Group events and outlets are, of course, what I'm most used to, apart from my small showroom here at home.  One is given a space and inevitably compromises have to be made not only on the amount of work which can be displayed but sometimes about exactly which pieces will blend with the work others are showing.  Having a whole, lovely space all to myself to arrange any amount of my work exactly as I wanted was a great pleasure.  I'm not a person who believes in modesty for the sake of it and see no shame in saying that I thought my exhibition looked great!  It was the sort of display I'd like to walk into a gallery and see.   What I'm saying is not so much about the pieces of work themselves, by the way, but about the overall design and impact of the exhibition. Each morning opening up was a delight.

A week flies by and this one did just the same.  Suddenly everything was being packed back up into boxes and carted off home again.

From the peace and tranquility (yes, that is a euphemism for not as many customers as I'd have liked!) of a solo exhibition I was plummetted straight back into the hurly-burly of the new arts and crafts centre and, as I've said, I've been spending quite a lot of time on it.

This work involves a certain amount of work on my own at home as I am responsible for much of the admin work but it also involves lots of phone calls and working in the shop, chatting to the other artists, selling to the public and other things involving lots of people contact.  I like my space in the shop but it is of course limited in size and I have to select what work to show.  I can arrange my own display but not those of other people.  So the whole experience is a very strong contrast to that of the solo exhibition.

I enjoy being part of a group very much.  I always enjoyed teaching groups in the reintegration centre more than the solo teaching because of working amongst other people.  I enjoyed being part of a co-operative shop when it was one.  I'm a gregarious sort in general.  Early cine films of me learning to swim aged 4 show that even while concentrating on not drowning I was chattering away.  And yet - I am constantly wanting time on my own. 

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that this sometimes desperate need for solitude has much to do with being an only child.  Most other only children I have known well as adults feel much the same. It's not always convenient, especially when you live with someone else.  I am very lucky and very happy being married to M and love our life together but as we are both based at home it has taken us a while to work out how to fit our different needs for solitude and company together with one another.

This is suddenly gelled into a concept when I sat down to write this piece.  Not just the solo exhibition but also my work in the pottery have a quality which for the moment I'm not going to attempt to explain.  When I walk into the pottery to start work in the morning I get the same sort of feeling as when I walked into the gallery to open my exhibition.  A sort of inner "aaah ... " accompanied by a feeling of relaxation and well-being.

I'd hate to be marooned on a desert island.  I'd last about two minutes.  I need human company desperately.  I just like to choose when I have it, is all.

What I have been mostly doing lately ....

... is getting involved at Gloucestershire Arts and Crafts Centre.  Here I am in front of my pots in the shop.   I have cards elsewhere and a few smaller wallhangings displayed above the pots.

It's all very exciting getting the centre going and it's been a fair bit of work for many of us.  As I am going to be responsible for much of the admin, there's been lots to do getting systems organised.  Once things are up and running it will all take less time but I have been busy, to say the least.

Today I should have been able to make pots.  I'm about a month behind with making my own work and not altogether sure what I will do about it.  But in the meantime we have both been struck by a Dreaded Lurgy.  Actually, it's only a bad cold, but I am certainly under the weather and not up to anything very physical.   It's most frustrating.  It's not only a matter of getting behind but also of 'feeding the inner self'.  I need to be making some of the time for my own general well-being.  Going into the pottery to work feels very restorative these days and I miss it when I can't get in there.

Additionally, I have been living like a hermit lately.  The lurgy struck just when I had planned to become a little more sociable and invite people round and go out with others.  I'm certain none of them want my germs so once again I'm seeing nobody much, which I'm not happy about. 

Hang on in there, folks.  I haven't forgotten you all.  I'm sure that one day I'll be back to my usual sociable self.  In the mean time, I hope this blog is better than nothing and will try to write more frequently.

Life returns ....

...  to normal.  In as much as I have what could be called a normal life.  But today is the first time this month I've felt I have time to write this blog.  It took a bit of doing.  Having got out of the swing of it there are actually dozens of things which seemed more urgent for today and at first I thought this would have to be another blogless day.  But then I realised that a different approach is needed because there will always be a dozen things to do.  We're all familiar (aren't we?) with the concept of prioritising but I think it's something which is easily misused. It tends to acquire a rather mathematical, scientific flavour, to do with order of urgency.  Writing my blog is in no way urgent.  However, prioritising should be about the things that are most important and they may have some other quality that gets overlooked.

Over the last few months I have kept meaning to write about my bread-making but other things jumped up to be written about and the bread was neglected.  I've been making all my own bread, though, since some time in February.  One of the great joys of this is that M prefers my bread to most other (although he still feels that proper French bread is superior!)  Previously, bread choosing has often been a bit of a compromise as we have different preferences in bought bread.  Now, things are easy.  Bread-making has also become a kind of symbol of "getting a life" and holding on to it that I set about last year.  Gardening is another part of that picture.  I have been particularly sad that for about two weeks we had bought bread again, simply because I wasn't home for long enough to complete the process.  Yesterday, therefore, in spite of still having mountains of things to do, bread was made and life started to return to normal.  It seems a natural step to add blogging today.

I wouldn't want to ally myself too closely with the slow-living movement because slower is not really what I'm aiming for.  (Though having gone through about three weeks of much-too-fast-living I can appreciate the point!)  I'm really after balance and a certain quality which I am struggling to find the words for this morning (clearly out of practice.)  It's related to self-sufficiency but without the connotations of "I don't need anyone" that that phrase seems to have taken on recently.  It's to do with being personally involved in the processes and physicality of one's own space.  I don't need to grow my own food.  I don't feel strongly about eating organically-produced things.  I don't fret about a garden having weeds or looking untidy.  I just love to be in contact with my own bit of soil and grow things.  I like making food from scratch not because I don't trust or like any other type of food but just because it's important to me to feel involved in the process.

Writing a blog - using the many technologies of digital camera, computer, internet, blogging software - doesn't obviously have much in common with growing vegetables or making meals from scratch.  There's something here, though, about a sort of hands-on connection with one's life.  Writing involves reflection (well, it's probably better if it does!), which is itself a way of connecting to what is going on.

I do want to post pictures and write about Going Solo.  I also want to write about the new Gloucester shop.  But that is all for another day.  Today is for enjoying being at home, doing washing, sowing long-overdue vegetable seeds and getting back in touch with life.

Busy, busy, busy.

Er, well, that's it really.  I'm sad I haven't had time to even write a few lines lately, but some time may come up soon, I hope.  What am I busy with?

• Firing pots, including new designs ready for exhibition
• Publicity and organisation of exhibition
• Packing and delivering pots to ByLocal in Cheltenham
• Helping prepare room for new arts & crafts shop in Gloucester - opening Friday 2nd April!
• Setting up admin for new shop
• Packing up my own work for new shop to deliver on Thursday
• Support for workers on greenhouse plot!

The greenhouse project - just keeps on growing!

Things are moving forward. Now there is a small retaining wall and the area in front of the garage is more or less prepared for the concrete. This will give us an almost level in front of the garage. There will be a minimal slope to allow rainwater to drain off it instead of into the garage. It will be still be quite level enough for me to wheel a ware trolley out onto it to dry pots in the sun.

The other picture shows the soakaway drain that already existed, having had all the broken bits of concrete removed and the whole things stabilised and sited where it needs to be.

You might think this brings us closer to completion of the project, but you'd be wrong! We've decided to continue on the theme of doing a good job while we're at it and go for rebuilding the retaining wall between the greenhouse site and the vegetable plot. It's just as well. The demolition you see here took M no longer than half an hour. The concrete and stone topping on the wall apparently just levered off in one piece and the blocks, which had no kind of footings underneath, came away almost as easily. Extending the project has implications for how long it will take and when we will be able to go away, but each extra step does seem to be much better done now than later. The wall would have been difficult, if not impossible to deal with once the greenhouse is built.

Going solo

Things were getting rather stale round here.  The last couple of months had brought the lowest sales figures for a long time, partly because I had to turn down at least one opportunity because I was still not back making pots and other outlets had fizzled out for one reason or another.  Eventually I fired the kiln the other day, only to have one of the most disappointing firings for a long time.  This kiln has been uneven since I had it and there are things I can and do do to counteract that but sometimes it still surprises and therefore greatly disappoints me with how uneven it can be.  There are still more things to try, which always makes me hopeful.  But a downturn in selling opportunities and sales income together with a downer of a kiln firing didn't make me happy!

There have been things in melting pots, though.  One of the melting pots - probably the biggest! - is my own mind.  I may have looked idle in the pottery department but I have not been idle in the business planning department.  At first sight, the recently offered opportunity to have a gallery all to myself in April looked impractical, especially as there are other things in the pipeline and bearing in mind that I have three missed months of production to catch up on.  Yesterday, though, I made a decision.  Commit myself to working on sales and being away from my workshop for April in order to get the sales figures lifted.  There are opportunities coming up in the autumn, so it's now that I particularly need to give things a lift. 

So.  My first solo exhibition will be from 13th - 17th April at the Cotswold Craftsmen Gallery, Nailsworth!

I'm extremely excited about this.