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.  

A fishy plaque

This large fishy one is about 30cm in length made with white clay, influenced by a design in  museum in Bretagne, heavily modified! I realise now I had been mark making in clay. I think I would like to return to those regular fortnightly two hour meditational sessions where I could choose to model what I wished.
I gave this to my son and his wife. It was about two years late in the giving because of family currents being all at sea!
I rather like it.  I hope they will attach it to driftwood and hang inside their liveaboard tug!

13 October 2015: Postcript to comment received below: 
This fishy dishy was approximately six hours labour plus the intervention and support of my pottery tutor .. she is French. Lessons were approximately I think ten euros per hour.. (my memory is poor!) supposedly a group session but sometimes it was only me!  PLUS there was the time for first firing then the second firing in the kiln. I know nothing about kilns!  I didn't have to pay for clay or glaze.
Having all of those would be too expensive for me.
After going to LPP for L'Art et Lard I felt a surge of desire to return either to her or a different potter. There is an English guy nearby but it's nice to do these things in French! I live in France so should be speaking in French!!! Can't help who I am though! An English National!
There's a guy going to do printing lessons too! I asked him to let me know when he has set it up! He is also English!
At the art exhibition, I almost succumbed to purchasing a beautiful FUSCHIA photo in a shiny format... I do love that colour!   I also nearly succumbed to purchasing a blue pottery vase and a beautiful pottery bowl a painting of a nasturtium and a glass bottle windchime or even the one that just swung with the wind.. as life does!!!!!!

Waiting to be Here

A Red Ferrari parked at least overnight outside LaBelleVue.
An English registered Black MX5 parked for at least a week along my street.

A push to stretch muscles and walk gentle slopes of almost vehicle free lanes,
to the crucifix, to crossroads.
For 50 minutes goodness abounds observing the change of Season.
Enjoy the peace and calm that Autumn brings.
Passing my land I note that it is two weeks since it has been mown,
the longest period of all the year!
Earlier this year, it needed to be mown every five days,
usually every seven at the most!
Dreading the mowing but then a feeling of joy will transcend.
It will be worth it for that!
Knowing that this is the time for other work as well as gardening.
For tidying and clearing, for turning over.
Ploughed fields reveal clean brown terrain.
Ploughed fields bring hope and promise.
In the distance it must be a deer or more running field on field as a result of farm vehicle movement.
In the distance rabbits race like the speed of lightning, bobbing their cotton-tails.
Stamp on recently fallen walnuts revealing mooshiness, fruit blackened rotten.
Stamp.
Wait for solutions.
Waiting.
When one doesn't know what to do one waits.
A friend said that.
I know what to do as well as wait.
Keep occupied.
Much there is accumulated from all the yesterdays.
So for all the tomorrows I'd better sort it.
Let the day unfold.

Cycles turn in the mind.
Dreams wheel and turn.
What would it be like to just walk and walk?
To get there.
Where?
Anywhere.
And then one would be Here.
Here in Peace.
Calm.
Until...

Un orage

A storm clapped immediately above us as we were in the midst of our meal. It caused consternation but they said it would herald the colder weather that has been forecast. Nearby was the grandiose Gartempe river, nearby the village church with its newly restored spire, which would have attracted lightning.
To begin, we ate: grated carrot and celeriac in lots of lemon juice, followed by red or black radish, if we wished, then rondelles of carrots layered with other veg and eggy mixture, pressed and baked as a quiche-omelette, served cold in cubes and garnished with mâche.  I'd baked a vegetable pie using shop shortcrust pastry.  I leave the paper on, and press it into a deep, oval, pyrex dish.  I spread aioli onto the base and sides of the pastry, cover with a deep layer of sautéed onions, a layer of canned spinach, squeezed so that the moisture has been removed, top with sautéed sliced mushrooms.  I added leftover ratatouille (aubergine, onion, red pepper, garlic, courgettes). Then fresh, raw, red pepper sliced into strips, with fresh soft goat's cheese in between to make red and white stripes! Bring the pastry up and wrap on top which leaves the vegetables and cheese revealed in the centre. Add a little more aioli to the pastry on top.  Bake in a HOT oven for about 40 minutes or until the pastry is golden. MMMMmmmmmmmm.
The French love to find out how food is made. They kept repeating the words "vegetable pie" with some amusement and all wanted 2nds. All was accompanied by a Bordeaux rouge and much conversation, most of which I did not follow!  We were replete but coffee was served with a cake that René had made... it was like an English fruit cake. One lady wanted to drink wine with it, so I did too. I explained that my grandmother always had a glass of sherry with fruit cake.  Trying to return my date shortcake for 4pm tea to the basket, they decided they wanted that NOW!!!!!  How can anyone lose weight like this?  I remember!  "Calories" was one of the subjects they were discussing!!!!!
After which, we started the pottery class.  Previously made objects needed to be glazed: a donkey, an incense stick holder and a butterfly. I also started and finished a flat fish made in Raku clay which has pieces of previously fired clay in it to add strength. (Ah, I wonder if that is called 'biscuit clay'?)  It has to dry before being fired, then glazed and re-fired.  Dom had several of her professional pieces to fire: a swallow, a robin, a model with separate arms and legs. Raku firing was to happen. 

Gingerbread Parkin and Raku pottery

In the last few weeks I have indulged in making three batches of this winter cake: Gingerbread Parkin

I have a wonderful book called “Talking about Cakes” by Margaret Bates. It has an emphasis on Irish and Scottish tastes. This was published in 1964 and she died in 1968.  I bought it in 1973 and has been such a mainstay that the pages have come adrift from their sewn binding and the pages are brown.  It should go with me to my grave, but not before I have passed on several of my favourite recipes and this was another….. a prelude to flapjacks.  The recipes have to be converted to metric but that’s easily done.
Yesterday I went to a Raku course given by my pottery teacher. I’d already modelled several things which needed glazing but during the morning I made two more items. They’ll wait for the next Raku firing as they have to be dried, I think!   It is rather challenging to listen to French people for a two hour lunch and later to get into trouble because although I know I shouldn’t, I HAD managed to cover my fingers in oxide glaze! 

 Well, I digress, as usual!  Even though I am ‘off task’ from domestic cleaning tasks, I am attending to two admin tasks:

1.   Provide the recipe for the RAKU group. They think they can substitute the golden syrup for honey or maple syrup!  I know this will not be the same but actually I should try it and see.  

      I have to translate the recipe into French!

2.   Provide the posting for this blog site.

PARKIN  comes from the North of England especially in the Leeds region.  It is a form of gingerbread and is best kept for up to a week but fresh from the oven it is delicious with stewed apples and a clod of cream.

So here we go:  Mix together the following dried ingredients:

225g flour

225g oatmeal

100g sugar or 110g if you prefer it sweeter

2 tsps baking powder

2 tsps ginger or I use 1 of ginger and 1 of cinnamon

In a pan warm and melt together 55g butter, a very large dollop of golden syrup and the same of black treacle. The recipe says 165g of each but it’s messy weighing it out! Add some milk, beat well and remove before it starts to get hot. 

Mix with the dry ingredients, add more milk if necessary until it is a pouring consistency. Pour into a greased shallow tin and bake in a hot oven for about 20 minutes or so. Keep an eye and remove when golden brown and firm or bouncy to the touch.