Balancing Act

Returned from  Summer Lodge at Nottingham Trent University happy and with lots of ideas. Especially pleased with throwing pots which were not fired and ideas of sustainability and the notion of not leaving a legacy – a buzz word of the moment.  The pots have a  temporary life, and are already cracking and crumbling. They have a tactility that is often missing from my work and which was part of the aim of making them. I love the feel of clay and the way it can responds to touch. Whilst I am not an expert on the potter’s wheel and generally have little time to practice, I  enjoy connecting with the material and the craft. I had built up a backlog of ideas of designs to try out with varying degrees of success. The results were displayed on small platforms on a plinth as one work and as though they were perfect, bringing in lots of ideas about exhibition and display. My favourite, however, was throwing a worm cast, about a centimetre high and less than half that in diameter. Its insignificance in terms of size is at odds with the importance of its real life existence as a measure of health of soil.