Over the past few months, building up to this stage, I have been concentrating on producing a range of pots using mostly coil techniques; I have also become the proud owner of a pugmill, courtesy of Ebay (what else?), and spent a warm Sunday afternoon earlier this month reclaiming all the clay waste from the previous six months. Despite being obtained very cheaply, the pug performed beautifully, and will quickly earn its keep, as I continue to strive to produce pots that I feel happy with.
It's a very difficult position to find yourself in, whereby you are creating a craft item from scratch, with only your own thoughts to guide and assess your progress, and in my case, without the benefit of having spent three years at art college, with the freedom to explore and experiment, build your making skills to a confident level, without the pressures of having to find buyers for your wares. Though I have no realistic aspirations to earn my living as a potter, I do aspire to produce work of such a quality that someone, somewhere might consider it of sufficient merit to exhibit it in a gallery, and for it to hold its own against established, trained potters.
However, placing my feet more firmly on the ground, and not getting too carried away with myself, I need to be content with taking smaller steps, and today, pulling my intact, bisque fired pots out of the kiln, takes me one step further.
Its taken a while to muster up the confidence to invest in a new controller for the kiln, but with the assistance of Simon Warren at SM&K Ltd, I now have the ability to bisque and glaze fire my pots. Simon and his colleague were extremely helpful, not only in supplying and installing the controller, but also in taking the time to talk me through the firing process, demonstrating how the controller works and inputting a couple of introductory firing programmes. My thanks to them both.
Now just the tricky task of deciding how to glaze them - a whole new challenge to overcome.
In the meantime, I am continuing to work towards completing the NCFE level 2 course I'm working on at evening class, and the exhibition of work at the end of the course, at The Poly, Falmouth in July.
My final piece for the course, which I producing in BIS, black, grogged clay from Doble's clay pit in St Agnes, is my largest coiled piece to date, measuring 18 x12".
