2012 Summer Newsletter
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Newsletter Summer 2012 In this issue: Nigel Edmondson Doug Fitch CCA Gallery Ostinelli & Priest Workshop AP Website Update www.anglianpotters.org.uk CHAIRMAN’S REPORT DOUG FITCH DAY EVENT The demonstration day at Mundford, was attended by many and enjoyed by all. Some members at the end of the queue were left with a modest lunch. I wonder whether the ‘early birds’ had a rather large appetite!!! SELECTED MEMBERS My congratulations go to Angela Mellor, Anja Penger, Christine Pike, and Peter Deans, who were successful at the April selection meeting, and join the list of Selected Members. CCA GALLERY, CAMBRIDGE The Selected Members’ show at the many visitors but sales were modest. Cambridge Comtemporary Art Gallery Peter Cuthbertson, Dameon Lynn, in April represented Anglian Potters Katharina Klug, Jane Sanders and myself wonderfully well. I viewed it on the first were the AP members involved. It was Saturday morning, and Colin Saunders good to exhibit in Northants, and meet already had a teapot ‘red spotted’. See some new potters. page 6 for Colin’s report and Anja’s photographs of the show. AGM AT MUNDFORD POTTERY IN THE SHIRES By the time this Newsletter is published the AGM will have happened, but I Julie Houghton of Corby Kilns, would like to thank all committee officers promoted this show in Burton Latimer for their service and support. on 4 and 5 May as part of Craft and Design Month. This new venture Victor brought together 13 potters and attracted workshop later that same month. It is amazing to see the different styles of AP members showing through despite all using the same basic construction techniques. I want to draw your attention to the AP website update on page 13. Now that the migration to the new upgraded website has been completed, the log in method has changed a bit, so we all need to get used to the new system, which uses the email address held on our membership list. Another major change is that it is EDITOR’S NOTES now possible for all members to have It is difficult to remember now that their own profile page, where they can we have some May sunshine how showcase their work to the public. If you bitterly cold it was on the Sunday of have any comments or need help, don’t Nigel Edmondson’s demonstration at hesitate to get in touch with Geetha, our Mundford. I hope that members who, Webmaster. like me, were snowed in at home and A reminder: don’t forget to let me know were unable to make the journey will about shows you may be involved in, and enjoy the article and photographs kindly I will give them some publicity. Don’t supplied by Liz Chipchase and Marion forget, too, to send me pictures and short Cover: Lidded vessel by Doug Johns. It does sound as if those who articles if your summer holiday takes you Fitch Photo: Carolyn Postgate made it had a great time, as did the to interesting places and potteries! participants of Ostinelli and Priest’s Carolyn ANGLIAN POTTERS NEWSLETTER SUMMER 2012 CONTENTS Page 2 Chairman’s Report|Editor’s Notes|Committee Page 3 New Selected Members Page 4 Nigel Edmondson Demonstration Page 6 Selected Members at the CCA Gallery, Cambridge Page 7 Running a Gallery in Modern Times Summer Exhibition at Emmanuel College Page 8 Doug Fitch at Mundford Page 11 Two Bits of Good news from Norfolk|Members’ Websites Page 12 Ceramic Helpline|Benefits of Membership Page 13 Website Update Page 14 Ostinelli & Priest Workshop Page 17 Members’ Shows Page 18 My Favourite Tool|Book Review Page 19 AP Clay Stores Page 24 For Sale|Diary|Membership Fees|Advertising Rates Logan Frank Owl – Ostinelli & Priest workshop NEW SELECTED MEMBERS This year we have four newly selected members: Peter Deans, who makes functional ware, lovely jugs, bowls and goblets. He started his career in pottery in New Zealand and has a lot of experience in throwing pots. Angela Mellor, who works with slipcast bone china and produces delicate vessels so that the light shines through. She spent some years on the other side of the world in Australia, where she Angela Mellor completed her studies and started developing her current work. Anja Penger-Onyett Christine Pike, with her intricately sculpted work Peter Deans of human and animal figures. Christine trained and worked in soft sculptures and has in the past Christine Pike worked as a designer of puppets and bears for several companies. Anja Penger-Onyett, with her sculptural work and ceramic jewellery. The Elemental sculptures are assembled from individual ceramic elements and the Meteorites are hollow spherical shapes glazed in reduction-fired glazes. The ceramic jewellery is made from simple geometric shapes also glazed with reduction-fired glazes. Congratulations to our newly selected members and many thanks to the Selection Committee and to Carolyn Postgate for sorting out the venue! Anja Penger-Onyett Selected Members Secretary 3 NIGEL EDMONDSON DEMONSTRATION It was unfortunate that Nigel Edmonson’s demonstration day coincided with the only substantial snowfall of the winter in our region. Happily, in spite of the conditions, Nigel managed to make the journey from Cumbria to Mundford and was joined there by some 40 determined Anglian Potters from around the region. As is usual in a crisis, everyone rallied round to make the best of things. By 10.30 the car park entrance was cleared of snow and ice, an austerity lunch had been obtained from the village shop and the chairs were arranged so that even without a projector and screen we all stood a fighting chance of seeing Nigel’s presentation on the laptop. Nigel’s current work concentrates on the production of pottery for the garden. This may take the form of pebble pots, slab built plant containers or large sculptural pieces all decorated with texture and slips and enhanced by careful placement of Sempervivum plants. It is interesting to compare this work with some of his earlier pieces where the decoration was heavily influenced by Moorish architecture and tiles. In those cases decorative slips were used in strict geometric patterns on smooth clay surfaces to give very formal controlled-looking pieces, quite unlike his current work. His change in style was influenced by his move to the Lake District where the landscape captured his imagination and he decided to incorporate it into his pots. Thus the texture and stratification of rocks, the muted colours of the vegetation and the towering silhouettes of the surrounding mountains are all reflected in his work. Marion Johns Nigel began his demonstration by means including: impressing the clay with assembling one of his slab built a volcanic rock, wiping on soft clay with landscape pots. The sides of these are a palette knife, attaching small balls of made from slabs that have been placed clay (Peter Beard’s clay body, which is over a former of plywood bent to give very white) or thin rolls of crank clay to a gentle curve to the clay. These two emphasize the appearance of strata. curved sides are joined together with strips of clay some 3 inches wide using slip made from dried, reconstituted and Liz Chipchase sieved crank applied with a slip trailer. Nigel’s pot in a landscape – a slide from the laptop The edges are tapped together with a presentation wooden batten, checked for verticality Like all our demonstrators, Nigel and then placed on a slab of clay that brought along an assortment of his will form the base. The outline of the favourite tools and since he works with pot is marked on this and then the coarse textured Craft Crank clay these base slab is cut approximately 5 mm tended to be on the large side. Thus, larger all round and drainage holes are he uses lengths of saw blade rather punched out. The base and pot are than a serrated kidney to scrape back scored, slipped and joined together and and texture his work, a pizza cutter for the extra 5mm of clay is drawn up to cutting slabs to shape, wooden battens form an angled lip that will not retain for tapping seams together and kitchen water. The top of the pot is then cut scouring pads to smooth off edges. to give a pleasing curve and the whole pot is textured, first by scraping back Marion Johns with the saw blade and then by lightly Similar but rather less extensive polishing with a rubber kidney to decoration is used on his pebble pots. soften the effect. A central panel is then These are constructed from two shallow decorated in Nigel’s distinctive manner. bowl-shaped slabs formed over hump He uses a combination of texture and moulds joined together with a coil of colour on this panel to give the effect of clay. The coil is smoothed on the outside rock strata. The colour is applied with using a wooden batten and the closed a sponge and is basically a white slip (1 pot is then centred on a banding wheel part ball clay:1 part china clay) to which so that two concentric rings marking Marion Johns Scarva high firing colours may be added. the foot of the pot can be applied. Favourite tools The texture is provided by a variety of Drainage holes are then cut within 4 this area. The pot is turned over and re-centred on the banding wheel and a circle of clay, equivalent in diameter to the size of a 1 litre flowerpot, cut from the middle. The inside edge of the coil joining the pots can then be smoothed out to complete the seal between the two halves.