colour me today.

still gorgeous when they finished
and 
 reminded me of

this  

and this.  

my favourite pastels at home. xm

g e r a n i u m

almost the end of this year’s geranium 

full of life till the last petals

i would love to live like that 


p.s.
guess where i found this glass? 
xm

smile maker of the week #5

a gorgeous package from Canada has arrived. 

original mixed media work by Annamaria Potamiti.

I think her work has unique narratives beneath that can take you to the wonderful journey together. Those composition, mark-making, line drawings and colour combination, all the stuff I love, her work has it all! In this particular work called ‘my sweet vacation’, I fell in love at the first sight. Thank you so much Annamaria. 

Have a lovely weeked all. xm

good, bad and ugly

somehow i tend to settle on the 'ugly' ones. xm

experiment

All of a sudden I felt like painting. Sometimes it is nice to just follow an urge and have a go. I even dug out a blank canvas. Last time I painted on a canvas was when I was in junior high. Blimey, what have I been doing for the last quarter of a century? xm

53 degree workshop

Last Saturday I ran the ‘hand-building’ workshop at the New School House Gallery. This was a part of 53 Degree North exhibition that to offer the local community to access arts more closely. Although I normally teach people with special needs and I have run the children’s workshop in the past, I was very nervous as this was my first time to run the session to the general public. Thankfully it was a very small group, so I have managed not to panic as I thought I might have. All have made several items out of ‘coiling’, ‘slab building’ and ‘pinching’ techniques during the two hour session. 

Thank you so much for coming Janet, Liz and Chris. Your work will be fired this week and ready for home soon. Many thanks to Robert for organising this. xm

curiously compulsive #2

old glass bottles

best with sweet peas this time of year xm

story from Brier Hey Pottery #2

First of all, thank you so so much for your kind words and advice on the previous post. It means a lot to me, truly encouraging and empowering so thank you! 

My wrist is getting much better now and I have got back on a wheel again. On my regular visits at Brier Hey Pottery, David has been helping me ‘refining’ my throwing. It may sound odd but I have never done throwing at his studio in the past. It was simply not my role at the time. Nevertheless I watched him throwing many times and tried to copy it. Of course it was not that simple to copy just by eyes. My throwing was mixture of what I had learnt briefly at college 10 years ago and self practice for the rest. It was pretty much ‘guess work’ and obviously I have developed quite many ‘bad habits’ -  too much water, too much clay on the base, too long messing about… you name it. I suppose there is no right or wrong way to throw, but it is very helpful if you can reduce those bad habits in order to establish the best way that suits you. Under his guidance, I have been practicing to make numbers of bowls in exactly the same shape, in height, diameter, thickness and angle of curve. Just doing over and over. Such practice is hard and mundane but necessary if you want to get rid of bad habits. It’s been a good learning curve so far and my body has begun to response better. The result of my throwing is much less wasteful of clay, water, effort and time. Thank you, David!

my unsuccessful thrown pot going to the death road

He is now off to another ceramic event in France so I will not be working in his studio for a while. In the meantime I must keep practicing at home and start making work for the forthcoming event and the final year of my degree course. Soon it will be a mad time again! 

view from Brier Hey Pottery Studio

By the way, the last minute decision. I will be finally flying to Japan next month before my course restarts. It’s been three years since I last saw my folks. Well over due and I’m soooooooooooo looking forward to it. xm

should wait or should not?

We went to POTFEST yesterday. POTFEST is one of the annual ceramic festivals in Britain where over 100 potters sell their work at a three day event. I have been visiting there almost every year since I first viewed David’s work back in 2000. It was lovely to find his stand filled with many visitors attracted to those dynamic strokes of colours on his work. I was one of them of course, like a bumble bee that cannot resist the taste of summer flowers. 

I have dreamt about doing POTFEST one day and that day has not arrived yet. Even David has encouraged me for some times especially since I have gone back to work with clay, I hesitated. Lack of confidence is always the issue. When do I ever overcome such a thing? Lots to consider for a big event like this, in particular financially to be there for three days. What if I do not sell anything? Should I wait until when I…(many excuses here)? Who knows such answers? The application of next years POTFEST will start this autumn. I am gradually building up the positive mood for going ahead at last… xm 

images of colourful majolica work by David White

this summer

i love being out in the garden so much this summer. how about you? xm