April's Studio Journal

Life in the dusty studio this past month, plus a little Sicilian adventure.....and separation anxiety. This post is un-apologetically late. Sorry.

I did start writing this post when it was still April. I was face-timing Matt, he in the studio trimming a pesky batch of mixing bowls (he was having a lot of trouble because in the heatwave the bowls hadn’t dried very evenly) and me at home cuddling our daughter. We sat each working away on our separate tasks, not really speaking, I could just see him working out of the corner of my eye and hear the familiar jarring screech of trimming tool against clay, with occasional interjections of a profanity as he put his fist through a base of a bowl.

Clay can be like that, just very…… contrary.

Me and Matt often facetime like this when we can’t both be in the studio together, which is quite a lot nowadays with three children, just to be together and enjoy each other’s quiet company, even though we don’t actually speak. It is a sort of moral support from one another when the clay isn’t going our way, or when parenting just feels a bit much.

So now, seven days later and a whole new weather-front and new month later, I am back to finish what I started - my April studio journal. The month of steady making was punctuated with much disruption as our daughter struggled to settle into her new daycare, she has been suffering greatly with separation anxiety which is so difficult for both her and us. We’ve needed to be around to collect her early and so we couldn’t really get to the studio as much as we had planned. C’est la vie.

April kicked off with a firing in the large gas kiln. It was overall a success, with an even firing to cone 11 and lots of reduction. (You can see some further images of pots from the firing here and on our website here). We fire our electric kiln approximately once every one or two weeks, but the gas kiln is fired only every four months or so. This is partly because of its size, but also because it requires quite a different process, one in which we need to be present throughout the firing. Therefore the gas firings tend to be a bit more of an event, an opportunity for experimentation and to test new glazes, ideas and shapes. It is usually the pieces from the gas firing that are one-offs or more experimental in nature.

This time round we tested a whole series of wood ash and nuka glazes and some new clay bodies also. There is still a great deal of results for us to process - spend time with and assess. But the first reaction is one of excitement (some tests pictured below).

Alongside the gas firing and working on production in the studio, we took a week out and went to Sicily with our extended family - so really I cannot complain about anything! We stayed at Villa Carcara near Ragusa, a charming and beautiful old farmhouse in the Val de Noto region. We did visit Noto and of course the Caffe Sicilia (made famous partly by Netflix’s Chef’s Table) . Much gelato was consumed, a particular favourite of ours was an orange, olive oil and saffron flavoured gelato. What we really loved about Sicily, apart from the fascinating patchwork of history and architecture, was the food culture and approach to bio-diversity. Locally produced and good quality ingredients are available, not as a luxury but a staple, and people cook rather than eat processed food. It helps that the island is so fertile, of course, but we came back to the UK feeling like our little island could do a lot better in how we produce food and also consume it.

The latter half of the month has been slowly working away on some really great custom dinnerware orders for some equally really great people. Most of the pieces had been thrown last month and then dried and biscuit fired before we went away, so it has been mine and Luna’s job to sand, wax and glaze everything. Lots of fettling and attention to detail - hopefully everything will come out of the kiln perfectly - it is never a given but I do find that as each year goes by we acquire the experience and technical know how to lessen the unpredictability that is firing pots.

But I started April’s journal with a sense of overwhelm and frustration that really does go hand in hand with being a parent of young children and also running a small craft business. I thought I’d record in this month’s journal the outcome of some serious decision making by myself and Matt, in that we will be relocating our studio this summer. It is really an end of an era for us, as we’ve been at the Yorkshire Artspace as long as we’ve made pots, and we haven’t made the decision lightly. But we’ve found a studio less than a mile from where we live so that we can be around for the children, and so that we can both work, so that we can be together and not just on facetime! We’ll be stopping our 2-hour daily commute (hallelujah). The new studio doesn’t have the amazing light or city centre vibe of our current one, but it does have a beautiful landscape surrounding it and great high ceilings and the locality provides us with the opportunity to just…. make. I will surely be sharing more details with you in the coming months, but for now it feels amazing just to have made this bold step, even if it feels like a wrench to be leaving what has been an amazingly supportive place for us to grow our pottery practice.

But with the move we are losing Luna as she moves on to new things, mainly spending time on her own practice and travelling to spend time with other potters. We will of course miss her dearly, she has been amazing and so hard-working and she has become a great friend, but I’m so pleased for her to make this decision and seek a fresh challenge.

Sometimes things just have to change.

And with that, we’er in to May and I’d better get making….