Piglights

Years ago, back in the dark distant past, I had a customer who collected anything to do with pigs. She was a regular buyer of piggy banks, but one day she came in and said "Could you make me a piggy-lamp?".
So I did. Whilst it was sitting on the shelf awaiting firing, several other people saw it and asked for one. So they went into limited production. My mother kept one, and eventually my brother claimed it.
He recently took these pictures and sent them to me.

Why's the sticker still on it? I really don't know, I peel stickers OFF!, but the sticker says, alongside a nice little mediaeval style image of a woodcarver, "Produced by a Member of the Guild of Master Craftsmen".
The guild claimed it only accepted real MASTER craftsmen as members, but in reality, it took cash, with few questions, in return for membership. I expected to have to prove my worth in a selection process. But the guy who interviewed me knew NOTHING about pottery.
I paid up, and I was in.

However, my customers loved the logo and stickers, because it reassured them that this stuff was really good, it must be, because it's got this sticker, see, that says it was made by a member of......

(Logo used for illustrative purposes only)
( I was entitled to use it, at the time the pot was made, but allowed my membership to lapse, long ago.)

I always felt a little guilty about it, knowing that the Guild had not screened me enough to be a guarantee of anything. But undeniably, membership of it was worthwhile, it sold pots.

Maybe I'll start an international Guild Of Master Potbloggers. Send me a bunch of money and you can join.

Disclaimer:My comments refer to the Guild as it was in 1986, or thereabouts. It may be a very different organisation today, it still exists and has a website, Here.

Can You See What it is Yet?, Part 2

Remember this?

Revisited..

Then come the guffaws... when he realises he didn't put it on straight...
Doh!

Still, let's call it a "proof of concept piece", like those motorshow cars that don't actually go.......
I mean, I could come back and do one right, yes?

Might have to put a light in, I throw facing the open garage door, which means the bit in front, and on the right is poorly lit against the bright outdoors. That's my exscuse, and I'm sticking to it.

Ceramics/houses/kilns

http://lyricflight.blogspot.com/2007/11/housing-obsessed.html

Busybusybusy

An update, and a find.

I wrote before about making a house-portrait as a job in my potting days, here ,

Today, I was rummaging through my junk-store, and I found the half-scale test-piece.

(no slips or oxides on this one, just a clear glaze. The roof lifts off, to give access for a light fitting. Sorry about the dust, it's been hidden away for twenty years) : )

Can you see what it is yet?

Starting points for something else.
Update will occur if everything doesn't go horribly wrong.

Today's Pots

Today's activity was bottle forms, 6-8" most of the time was spent wedging and reclaiming clay. Oh, and making turning tools.
At the weekend, I'll make a heap of glaze test pieces, even though I've got no glazes as yet. Nor a kiln power supply.
And I'll clean the wheel and throw some white stoneware test pieces. I've got a selection of clays to try.
And teapots, I must make more teapots, and... teacups, and saucers.
Ohhhhhhh, I need a huge lottery win or a mystery millionaire benefactor, so I can buy some old farm buildings in an idyllic setting, build a woodfire kiln, and settle down to making pots. I wouldn't bother with selling them, I just like making......

Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

Plums in my friend, Ken's neighbour's garden.

John Keats wrote: "To Autumn"-

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.