Well I am finally back in the studio! Over the last two months I have managed to get bronchitis, write off my car (gently through a puddle, no injuries I hasten to add). Trap a nerve in my neck and squidge a few discs just for good measure and then nearly kill my entire family with carbon monoxide poisoning thanks to my kiln. We have a carbon monoxide alarm for the wood burner but it turns out you need one if you have an oil boiler, a kiln and not just gas which is what I originally thought. We also discovered that our alarm is really quiet and it is just luck that I heard it. The readings that the fire brigade were the highest they have ever seen so we really were very lucky. If you don’t have an alarm then please please go and buy one or two, they are really cheap and so worth it.

On that cheerful note I have started making maquettes of the garden sculpture I am working on. It is so good to be doing something productive and I am enjoying being creative again. The idea is to create an organic form based on a cone shape, it hasn’t been decided which way up the cone will be so I am trying out both. There will be two pieces which will either stand side by side or lean in together in some way.

These are maquettes 01 and 02. I have used light blue and porcelain slip with a view to using a white satin and shiny yellow glaze after firing. This will give various textures from the rough clay through to shiny glaze. Maquette 01 just has thumb marks whereas 02 also has throwing rings. Number two also has a sprig taken from a floor tile found at the clients home. The next test piece will be an inverted version of these two from a wide base to a tapering top.