Pottery

I returned to pottery this afternoon.  
I returned to moulding & creativity.
I  am going to a different potter to also meet new people, widen my horizons, speak English as well as French.  It is a dual challenge for me: language and art!  It will be similar but different to the informal, irregular pottery course I did between about 2006 and 2012, maybe 2014. I forget.  The course is every Thursday unless cancelled.  He is English.  I like his work plus he has a professional reputation as a potter in UK.  The gardens are huge and  there is a positive atmosphere.  Music sounded a varied selection which was vetoed if the choice was not approved!
I'd been to the artists' open day last Sunday but only visited one of the many and whilst there thought, "Oh I'd like to do this again!"

He remembered that I'd said I would like to do coil work.
Did I?
I am open to being guided to do any learning task that I'm set. 
What did I wish to make?
Oh, maybe something for the garden. Could it be frost proof? .. it doesn't have to be.
I hear myself speak.
I liked your spear heads on iron rods so thought of making fish shapes instead.
However, I sense he would like me to do something more challenging.
I am taken just outside to the garden where my eye perceives a tall,  fat, conical object with holes in it, hiding in a prickly-leaved shrub.
THAT! 
It's eccentric! Maybe a smaller version.
This could be expensive me thinks! 
Inside I'm shown how to use an extruder to make coils. 
Oh... I'm glad I don't have to roll them!
No... here are the plaques that give you the different widths of coil size.
See... F used this one for the bowl shape ... and for the pot outside, this one was used.
I chose one in-between. 
Clay is inserted into a long, vertical, rectangular container fixed to the table top.  Pull the lever down as if drawing a pint of beer.  Hey presto, catch the coils before they drop to the ground.  
Take a coil and follow one of the chosen circular contours on a board.
Follow the technique for adding coils. 
Move the clay with tools or fingers on the outside and inside so that the coil ridges disappear into a smooth wall on the inside and outside, which at the same time is forming a cone shape. That is, each layer of coil reduces the circumference. 
The potter came from time to time to check. 
It was neither easy or difficult but I had to use less slip and ensure I was not making too much of a cone at this stage.  Ah... I think it is being made in three parts!  At one time I took some layered coils apart when I realized the cone was not being formed, and then found it was being too conical! Whoops.
 Quite a lot to consider.
Quite a lot of sensory touch and sight.
Quite a lot of Mother Earth at my fingertips.
Two hours of emptying my head unknowingly, absorbingly, completely in a different environment, learning as one is aware of heavy stoneware clay being transformed by touch.
Nice.  

Beauty

This photo is from the BBC: an article about an 88 year old Indian company making and selling saris.  I have worn a sari more than once; they are beautiful garments to wear when wrapped correctly. I wore them when I used to go to concert halls in London and to musicians' houses at a time when my former husband was learning to play the sitar. He still has the sitar which is quite remarkable as the gourds do not always last. I would imagine his sitar is worth quite a sum of money now. The strings are like cheese wire and he developed callouses after many hours of playing. I admired him for what he learned and what he played.  I thank him for the introduction to the culture but in those days when new cultures were welcomed to my land by me it was in place of the opportunity to travel which then I could not afford.  Nor now, BUT YES, I still wish to travel to India yet will never be able to afford these silk beauties - the saris!  I love the juxtaposition of such beautiful colours.  This photo could be a painting of a moment in time.

The tenth of twelve

On the tenth day of Christmas cat and chicken duties ended.
Oh...the liturgical calendar seems to have moved EPIPHANY from 6th to 3rd January...
This explains....
http://stpeterinchains.com/2015/12/epiphany/
and 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Magi
explains further...
and with thanks to this link I reproduce a delightful image. I love the colours and composition.
 

Street Gallery

of the Guided Visit at the Folies Bastringues Festival...

The artists - Dominque, Celine and Corinne were very imaginative and creative.

Resting after Entertaining

The photos were taken with my camera by an unknown person but I forgot to show her how to use  zoom.  Digital cropping reveals a flavour of the Vagabond.  It was dusk on a clear night. The first stop after the Chevalier where there was no music was at Le Lecteur.  A prostrate figurine reading a book. I must try to read like that again!  Thomas with his Stroh-violin.

 ...here they come towards me...

...where I play "Coeur Vagabond" to the Green Man.  In France called le Bon Homme...this one with his head in the clouds or wind...

The group moved to the wall of faces.. look closely for, I think, 127 in total.

At 'le facteur', a wire bicycle is mounted on a circular roofed postbox. Thomas read and posted a postcard.

 He played again at 'L'Abri' -

I'd moved on to 'Les Arches' to play "Gypsy Mood" - a concerto type piece with slow, fast, majestic and light sections.

Being in the back street with little light, surrounded by dark stones of the church wall, opposite the Tree with White Leaves Reflected in a Mirror (my title),  I wasn't happy with my rendition of "Autumn Leaves".  I was  cold and tired. Thomas was supportive, encouraging with his accompaniment, or maybe I was accompanying him.  It was strange to play with the Bass Stroh.  He is an excellent professional musician and theatrical artiste.  I am hoping he will give me another opportunity to play but in warmer conditions where I can sit down!  Earlier, I had chosen to stand where I could have sat down...I had not realised how arduous it is doing street theatre!

 Moving on... 'A la Derive'... being adrift...the scarf was nice but a nuisance!

At the last artistic creation, returning to the place where we'd started, we did an unscheduled replaying of  'La Derive'.
Normally, I do not like to publish photos of me but at the age of 66,  recognising that I have played the accordion on and off since I was aged 7, I realise that this accordion has been 56 years in my ownership and is definitely a few years older than that!
I am publishing because this is the second time this year I have been invited to perform in public. The accordion is heavy. It takes a toll on my back and since the bicycle accident and biceps tendonitis my wrists. These wrists were beginning to give out last night but I managed to pull the beast of bellows in and out, pushing buttons, fingering keys.
I am publishing because I am celebrating my talent which has given immense enjoyment to me and to others.  Poor things who do not like to hear it, including the cat who needs to escape the room!
I am grateful to my mother for sacrificing her time and earnings to give me lessons with the renowned accordionist Martin Lukins in the late 1950s / early 1960s.... that was before I stopped to learn the piano with Mary Ash, my school music teacher.
Last night, someone asked if I had french 'prix' for my playing.  No, I have no qualifications!

WITH THANKS TO THOMAS and the Folies Bastringue Festival....Many people work hard to bring artistic experiences to the villages of France.  It has been a pleasure for me!

A beautiful rose

window at Le Petit Pressigny:

Art at the heart of rural France

Le Petit Pressigny held their wonderful art event this year.  Last year, either it rained or it was cancelled!  This year artists and their works were more interesting and attainable to understand and to purchase than in 2013!  Usually, I try to see everything but this year I was more relaxed. I couldn't find any apples or walnut oil on sale.  I intended to return to buy a butternut squash or pumpkin for 2 euros but forgot as I was keen to move on and see my friend if she was at home. However, walnut bread was found, but I declined to buy apples baked in pastry. They were something we used to make in my domestic science lessons at school.  Naughty but nice, I purchased several slices of English cakes as my oven is caput and I don't wish to make cakes in a mirco-combi oven.
I wrote a postscript here.
Shortly after my arrival, unbeknown to me, I'd dropped my camera after sitting with friends.  It was at least an hour or more later when I wished to take a photo ( I am careful to not be too intrusive to the creativity of the artist  even though cameras are clicking often)  that I discovered it was not in my bag!!!!!!        "eeeekkkk" ... said "The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark" by Jill Tomlinson.
Two artists said I had not left it on their stall, so I went to the ACCEUIL to ask 'si un photo-appareil est avec les objets trouvés'  et VOILA!!!  I expressed great gratitude to the person who found it and the madame said she would pass that on!
The table for 'les aperos' after the speeches was one of the prettiest I have seen since living in France.

Empty glasses...those little home made sponge fingers -Savoiardi or Boudoir Ladyfingers -were melt-in-the-mouth.

The Autumn flower and fruit decorations were art in themselves.

This man made a captivating speech about his? study of the survival of rural villages in France.

Recycled Glass Bottles. Everyone now seems to be making flowers like my pottery teacher used to do.

I just love the colours of Cosmos.

There were amazing models... this one of the threshing machine process

Balmoral Gingerbread at the English Tea Marquee as I had had no lunch!

The sculptures were many. I hope the artists made sales! This last one, metal and glass, would be ideal in my garden. I did not look at the price tag!