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.

Pottery Masterclasses

Last Thursday for the first time since I learned to centre clay I have been receiving tuition from Kevin Millward who according to the head of course has two claims to fame, he was the potter off the BBC's Generation Game and he threw the Sophie Conran Portmeirion range, he is a very imposing person especially after he threw a teapot body from start to finish in around two minutes and that is when he was explaining as he went along. He makes our tech look slow, not that speed it everything it isn't but his skills are just amazing, he uses one metal rib with two finger holes and a wire.

After seeing the demo's the other third year students asked me me what I thought, my response was a simple "I'm going home now" he went through everything that was wronng with my work, so I needed a break to recover from the big long list.

He is being paid to teach the first years but as they are just learning to centre and do a single pull he has plenty of time on his hands to teach the three of us third years who need the help as we are more or less self taught.

I asked about handles so he pulled some and attached them to my jug, they stayed on most of the day until I got a bit messy with water and they snapped off, though he said they wouldn't stick at all. Tried to do the same thing yesterday on my pots but it just didn't work.

He took one of my pots as I was throwing it and showed me how to improve upon all the really fine details, there is a lot he went through with me and at the time it seemed a bit much but I appreciate it now.

He taught a slightly different method of throwing than the one I was taught so as you can see it took me a while to get used to it, he also insisted that I don't slide my pots off the wheel with water like I was originally taught apparently "no proffessional pottery uses that method" I have so much still to learn I know that but at the same time as I am learning this I am also trying to learn how to set up and run my own business. Any advice would be welcome.

I have 4 more Tuesdays with Kevin but at some point I have to fill the large gas kiln, I was unsatisfied with my test firing but I know where it went wrong, my glaze was either too thick or thin and I think I had too much cobalt on the brush as it was turning more green than blue. Forgot to get pictures but I will get them tomorrow inbetween my 101 jobs and demo's