Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,  we are taking both weekends off and of course Christmas Eve, which is my busiest baking day of the year.  It has been a busy few weeks and I am gradually getting into the swing of things, but we have a long way to go.

We have a lot more activities in the New Year, we have a Kids and Clay club starting to get local children interested in Pottery.  There are still lots of Pottery Lessons Available, and if you come and visit us we can teach you to make an animal or throw your own personal breakfast bowl and mug.

Our big mugs have been popular so another batch of those have been thrown as well as a smaller mug that is made with the same style in mind.

 Our new shop sign over one of our two arches and on the pictures below you can see how the shop now looks inside.  With the cold weather things don't dry very fast in the shop and rarely become bone dry so they tend to dry out on my kitchen table at home for a day before being fired.  The walls are still quite bare but we promised some space to a young photographer who is interested in selling some of his photographs, large ones of course.  We also have some clocks etc that we are going to put up on the wall, I'm just doing a few more glaze tests.

Pottery Lessons - the results

These are the results of three individuals I gave some tuition to, on the left is Jordan who has been on the wheel with us before back when we were students but he is a very nervous thrower and I think he did very well even though he was scared of the clay.

In the Middle is Catherine and on the right is Ben,they are my younger brother and sister but they had never been on the pottery wheel before.

I think all three did really well, and if you are in the North West of England and want a new hobby or a just to make a bowl and a mug, we can teach you on any one of our three wheels, we can do it individually or a family group.

Busy Busy Busy

The Pottery is keeping me so busy these days, things are slow there so I keep throwing in the window and try and get some interest, and people seem to like it from what they say as they pass but getting them through the doors is another matter, we do have visitors that come in but I need a way of getting more people through our doors rather than just looking in.

Earlier in the week we had our plastic splash backs fitted around the pottery, I don't have pictures yet but I will do soon.

Today has been a busy day, we went to our little boys preschool for their nativity play.  As he is one of the younger ones, ie under 3 he was dressed as Santa, he seems a lot bigger than the other under twos.  After that we headed to the shop and I threw 8 sake cups as a Friend commissioned me to make some, I threw some pouring bottles to go with them yesterday and the ones that were too big had handles attached and are now jugs.

This Afternoon our sign came from Broadway Publishing in Blackpool, it looks really good, but the fitting will have to wait until next week.  Then tonight was my Baby Brother's 21st Birthday Party, I can't believe he has gotten so old, I still think of him being about 8 or 9.  I went up to the Thornton Cleveley's Football Club, I took the little one and I don't drink anyways.  Once the little one got tired we came home and put him to bed and have been trying out my new camera and photo tent. It still needs a little tweaking and probably another light.

This Sunday we are at the Thornton Cleveley's YMCA craft Fair from 10-4 where we will be selling things and advertising our services including Children's Parties.  I have thrown a series of small mugs, bud vases and ice cream bowls that all weighed 250g when they were wet, so then the can be decorated whilst children are taking turns on the wheels.

These are some coggles that I made, though Simon Leach did a video of them, the Technician at UCLAN had some in his tool box and I always wondered what they were for.  I realise now I should have asked more questions when I was there.  They are for applying  repeating textures to pottery, I tested them before they were bisque fired.

Incense Stick Holder, I have some glazed in a speckled blue as well as this white and I am going to make some with crushed glass instead of the glaze, which will go in the next firing.

Oyster Plate, I threw this after watching a video on Youtube, I am really interested in using textures again in my work.  It is about the size of a side plate rather than a full sized plate.

Spoon Rest, the speckled blue is just the white with a small amount of cobalt added

I have made even more tea light holders as I was running out and then as soon as I threw these and bisque fired them I found another 10 of the reduction fired ones

Double "Twin Cherry" bowl, Twin Cherry was my wife's idea of what to call them, based on work that Simon Leach makes on YouTube the are just glazed on the inside and I have 5 of them, all in the white glaze.

Here is the Marsh Mill "Windmill" I was making, it has only been bisqued and is awaiting some more details before I put a thin layer of transparent on it.

Yarn Bowl, I have seen a few people making these recently and we have a wool shop a few doors away so I thought I would made some, but I didn't like the others so they are happily slaking down in a bucket at the shop.

Last shots from my camera - The New Studio

Well my digital camera of a few years doesn't want to work any more, it turns on and every button works except the one to take pictures so the dresser that we have with all my work on I don't as yet have a picture of.  So these are the last few shots

I have been working on a few ceramic panels of local landmarks, but it is coming along slowly as I work on the things that I need to get thrown.

This is my big Podmore wheel and is my favourite to throw on, though I prefer to trim on the Shimpo wheel, the Shimpo never really feels like it is on.

Here is the small Podmore and Shimpo wheels  in the opposite corner, they are very good wheels for beginners much smoother to throw on than the big on, and the right height for children.

We have various work tables to work on, we are just trying to get hold of a large wooden one for more people to site around and something to wedge on too.  If anyone has any ideas for a good work surface so then I don't have to go to the kitchen to wedge on the kitchen counter.

This is one of the three areas we have to display our work and we are constantly changing it round until we can sell a few more pots.


We finally got our streamline machine today so we can accept card payments.

Working had to get ready for the weekend

 So Friday 12th November we took over the Lease of Unit 9 of the Marsh Mill Craft Village, and received the keys to the door.  Marsh Mill is located in Thornton Cleveleys which you go through to get to Fleetwood from the Motorway, it is North of Blackpool and St. Annes and I have lived around here since I was quite young and is only a stones throw from the beach.  Marsh Mill was built in 1794 and is the only really major landmark here in Thornton apart from the long closed down Train Station, if you need a train you have to go up to Poulton Le Fylde.  Enough of a history lesson, we have a lot of hard work over the next few days are it is the Marsh Mill Christmas light switch on and we want to appear to be open by then.

When we first moved to Thornton in the early 90s I remember these sails turning around but last time I went in they said that cap couldn't turn around and they were waiting for a part, that was over 2 years ago I keep hoping to see it working again.

This is the outside of the shop, we are getting a sign made but at the moment our sign says we are "Marsh Mill Needlecraft" to our left we are getting 4D Photography Studios, it has been interesting seeing their false walls go up.  to our other side is a tattoo parlour, there is also a craft shop, wool shop, music shop, teashop, nails, hair, printing, pub and a restaurant

We pulled up the carpet and have sealed the concrete, we just need to get all the furniture in, I got a sideboard from a local e-store that refurbish furniture Apple Dumpling Antiques, I took delivery of it this morning and it is really nice.

There is a nice little nook and it is in here that I am going to put my big potters wheel so then I can throw and can always have sunlight, not like at Preston University.

We have 3 potters wheel at the moment and we are going to be offering throwing and hand building classes as well as selling our own work, and accepting commissions.

More pictures once we are set up in the next few days.

Dates for the Callender

Sunday 21st November - Pottery Demonstrations 3-4pm, free

Saturday 28th November - Decorate a Christmas Bauble, 1.99 per item, from 10am

Saturday 4th December - Taster classes £10 per person, from 10am

Greenland's Farm Village

On Saturday we were at Greenland's Farm Village, we were supposed to be in a marquee but we had gale force 7 winds Thursday and Friday, and I heard it blew away and caused some damage so we were in the Educational barn.

My sister wrote the price signs as my hand writing is terrible, it always looks like a spider has crawled across the page, if I slow down to a letter a minute it isn't too bad.

We had a good two days but I was constantly distracted by the fact I had taken the keys to the shop on Friday.

A bit too long

This is a bit longer than I meant to leave in between posts, especially as I have thing to blog about.  I got all the pieces I made over September and early October bisque fired and are now sitting in two boxes in my kitchen awaiting glaze materials and then firing.  I went into University to get them fired as my kiln still isn't in the position or being run but hopefully it will be soon.

At the moment it is looking like we will take over the unit on the second week of November and then will be working quickly to get it open before December to start teaching and get some money into the business.  It will be a fast and furious few weeks with family helping getting it ready.

On the 25th September we went to the Wales Contemporary Craft Fair in Betws y Coed, it was a nice warm day and thankfully didn't rain on us which I am glad of,  there were a lot of other people moving through and looking around.  We didn't get as much chance to talk to other stall holders as we did in Bacup.  Following are two pictures of myself and my wife at our stall in Wales.

Our next confirmed event is the  Greenland's Farm Village as shown on the poster below.  Hopefully more news to be added soon, and I won't leave it as long in between posts again.

Now and Then

This weekend I am off to Cymru Contemporary Craft Fair in Betws y Coed, this week I have been making more plinths for the work to sit on.  Excited about going but we have an early start to get there as we are travelling all the way from here in Thornton in my friends car, packing that morning then trying to get there on time.

I went into Uni this last week to find out which supplier they user for there materials and the head of course had put up our newspaper article on the base room door which is now shared by the 3D Design Students, which is going to make everything a bit too tight for work space, I'm glad I have finished, though I miss having those steady days of working and easy access to kilns and glaze.

Recently as I have been drawing to develop some new work, I have found myself thinking of my old art school days. I only went to art school for a year, and dropped out after the first year as I was then old enough to be a mature student and had a good enough portfolio to move on to greener grass(or so I considered at the time).  I learnt a lot at art school but never  work out how to apply most of it to personal work.  I have two examples I did recently below as my old sketchbooks are in a bedding box under all my second year ceramics work.

This was an exercise we did on the first day in technical illustration we had to learn how to shade, we did shading like this on proper work later on but or course a bit more controlled using straight edges.  When I was in my second year of ceramics I was obsessed with textures and incised the clay with various textures but it never worked how I wanted it to. I also tried dripping slip, tearing pots in half and all sorts of things to create textures.

Our technician at UCLAN made some really nice textured pieces in porcelain, he would make a tall cylinder, dry it with a hot air gun apply a glip(part slip part glaze as he would put it) then stretch it out until it was a bowl.  They were really nice pieces and one of the very few things he marked as his own work.

This is a continuous line drawing, my life drawing tutor showed us these, he said he did them in art school and then used to calculate the length of the line.  He described it as taking a pencil for a walk, the pencil lines aren't supposed to ever cross or leave the page, back at school I did two or three myself in my A3 sketchbook, this one is only A4 so it would fit on my scanner and took me ages to do, I almost gave up half way through but decided to at stick at it.  I have used continuous line drawings when doing sketches of people on the bus, train  etc, which I need to do more of.

Generally I am unhappy with my level of drawing skills and have been spending a lot of time on it recently from drawing buildings, to people to anything I can when I am out and about with the little one.  My other passion asides  pottery is concept art for films, and games particullar the work of Erik Tiemens whose work is a real inspiritation behind my painterly style.  When I was at high school it was his work and that of Doug Chiang that I wanted to imitate but didn't do art and when off to University to study Chemistry which didn't challenge me how I wanted it to.

Pottery and drawing challenge me every day as I know I don't have the same natural talent for making things as I did for maths and science.

Some old pots refired to sell on

All the work in the following pictures was gas fired up to 1260C but the kiln failed to fire any higher and the glaze hadn't matured.  So it has been re-fired in Pilling by the guys down at Northern Kilns as I still haven't got my own kiln up and running.  The clay used is B17C in all the ware but the Bottles which are crank.

Tea cups, each one is around 6cm tall

Beakers around 10cm tall

Bottles 13cm tall, these were originally thrown to be raku ware but I didn't manage to get a firing

Sugar Bowl 8cm tall
I had two sugar bowls go in the firing and a teapot, the teapot lid got chipped when it was being unwrapped at Pilling so it needs a new lid.  The other sugar bowl could do with a bigger lid too.

New Designers - A London Exhibition

I went to New Designers this week, it is still on until 4pm July 4th at the Business Design Centre in Islington near the Angel subway station.  It was different to my degree show as there wasn't a way that I could sell to the public directly as there was only limited space in the van, so everything in the next few pictures was all I had with me.  It was so hot down in London that some of the things we attached to the walls fell off over night.

We were up on the balcony and took an extra board to help the whole thing seem a little more enclosed.  Our work seemed so much smaller here than it had in Preston, there were a lot of people passing by and now I am out of post cards so I am going to get some new ones printed this week.  Our technician had met with us in London and was helping us organise the space, though our head of course who was taken ill just before the degree show came down to see us on the opening night.  Kevin Millward who taught me for a few weeks finally got to see some finished work as it was just going into the kiln on the last week he was in Preston and told me which pieces of my work he liked and those bits he didn't.

Our stand was on the right hand side by the stairs that go up to the higher level, on the lower level that you can see here was filled with textiles stands, there were 80 all in all compared to the 19 ceramics and glass stands.

Hi my name is Joseph...

and I am a throwing addict... and it has been 4 weeks since I have thrown my last piece of pottery.

It has been a busy 4 weeks preparing for the show, doing some home decoration, trying to get on top of all the jobs before the baby finishes nursery.

Yesterday was spent at Uni planning what was going to London next week, whilst I was in that meeting my mum was working hard to get all the other work wrapped up so we could clear out the uni.  I now have my work in various bags and boxes.  Today I started working through a box to work out what I am going to take with me to Stanley Park on the 18th July. 

I am putting together some press packs over the next few days for the London Event.

I have started the property search for a studio again, and have looked further a field but without having the option to move there it will cost me so much more to travel there every day via the buses.

Hopefully by the end of the month I am looking to be set up as I really want to get back on that wheel.

Degree Show Opening

Last night our degree show opened, it was quite busy and had plenty of people looking around and had quite a bit of interest in my work and people wishing me well for the future and saying I should do well in my future venture.  My old tutor made it out too, and I enjoyed chatting with him about the last five years here at UCLAN.

If anyone is in the North West of England, please feel free to come and have a look around we are in Victoria Building room 015 at the Preston City Campus.

Here are some Pictures of other peoples work, I will update if I get website details

Lorry Cudmore - A moment in Time.  Slab/Mould made forms with a mixture of clay and firing techniques her work is full of texture.

Joanne Throp - She makes these amazing bottles and tea bowls that come on a slab, she has a variety of pieces as well as some that are much bigger and smaller but all based around the bottles form, all her work is Thrown on the Potters Wheel and glazed inside.

Roisin Dougherty - her work is made from paper clay, with two of the pieces having glass eyes.

Anthea Travis (my wife) - She makes these charming animals, hand-building them in a variety of ways.  The heads are play on hunting trophies

Martha Evans - her work is made on the wheel by cutting shapes into the clay and stretching them out to alter the forms into these twisted pieces.

Anna Murfin - her work is wearable sculpture, full of texture and flows over the shoulder as can be seen in the background images.

Chris Catterall - Her work is based upon animal horns and really interact well together, not something you could have just one of.

Hayley Stubbs - Porcelain paper clay shell based forms

Helen - work based on wrinkled body parts, they are made up of two layers of clay that pull and stretch away from each other helping things look even more wrinkled.

Steven Telford - They are supposed to be seats, they are crank fired up to earthenware temperature so then he could get the bright colours

We have moved

Yes that's right the blog has moved from painterlypotter.blogspot.com to joseph.redfoxpottery.com

Over the next week I hope to do a little reformating.
The Degree Show opens to the public a week today so here is a quick teaser of one of my areas in the show

Some pictures from the last firing

I keep hoping I will get a chance at another firing soon but it is looking unlikely until I get my own studio. I have started remaking enquiries again and I am seeing the business advisor this week too. I have also finished all my applications for events in the fall, then in the fall I have to start making applications for next year, I should have more stock by then.

Twelve days left until the degree show opening, and I still haven't managed to get a hold of my old tutor yet. I do have a lead at finding him as one of my ex tutors lives around the corner from my parents but I have avoided asking him as it isn't the done thing. MY old tutor is retired 5 years now, he retired half way through my National diploma in Illustration.

Anyways here are a few pots from the last firing.

There were a lot of teacups and saucers but this was the only coffee cup and I have already had a few offers to buy, so I had to turn people down, will have to sell it after the degree show as it is tied up there until the 18th now.

This is my mark on the bottom of one my platters I really do like how it looks.
This is the largest of my platters and is about 40 cm in diameter, I can't really fit anything much bigger in the kiln as it would go over the edge of the shelf and melt like one of my other platters did.
This really was a firing for platters as I had so many, so many in fact that I still have some left over unglazed.
This is a tea set I made from "Porcelain White" Stoneware (from Valentine Clays) it is supposed to look like porcelain but isn't as translucent. I am hoping to try porcelain itself but I haven't had chance as one of our fellow students urgently needed a bag so we sold her ours. I did try and make tea cups but the handles split in half whilst drying. As a clay it is very different to what I am used to, it resisted being formed, it is like throwing wet plaster scraps. I do like the contrast it provides to my usual range.

If there is anything from the firing that anyone wants to see just ask.

In a day or two I will post some images of the jugs I made using different clays.