It has amused me for sometime , that I have ended up as a museum attraction, but not always the old exhibit from the 50’s.

I did a session for the History Gang all of whom won’t know what the millennium was like let alone the 1950’s.

My session with them was ‘Making a Saxon cooking pot’ , some did in fact make a cooking pot and some made what their idea of a cooking pot was . The most interesting part for them was the decorating of it, some more elaborate than others.

I was amazed by how little I did to spur them on and much they did out of their own creativity, they were really keen to make a good go of it.

This was last month, the next one is on Saturday for October, when we are going to make tiles.

Earth has not anything to show more fair,

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by the showroom at the bottom of my garden.

I find it hard to believe that Wordsworth wrote about my new showroom a good 200 years before it was even built, incredible.

We needed to store our boxes of pots so why not a showroom with the best ones displayed and all the boxes hidden. This will help us prepare for shows and enable visitors to peruse the stock.

My shed that I made was made from bits and pieces was nicknamed Franken shed is just across the way from the showroom , so we have nicknamed the showroom Mary Sheddy , Just to keep the baroque horror theme going .

If you want to, come and have a look, now you can.

The setting up of the show at the Pop in Boggers, to showcase the trail.

New for this year is bcat, a trail of artists on a seven mile coastal strip from Pagham to Elmer, a varied group of artists along the coast,

To highlight the trail a show was organised with the help from Rox,Bognor Town council and Bognor Bid, a lot of work and organising went into the show from the bcat committee who were there to set the whole thing up. They worked really hard and I think the results of their labours show.

It was opened by the Mayor who came with muscle in the form of two coppers from the community policing unit, in the evening before the real opening.

The following day it was officially open again by the mayor and there was a visit from Jim and a mate playing and singing , popular songs from the 50’s ahah.

MY holiday this year was two weeks in Sunny/wet Devon on a firing course at Barn Pottery, with Nic Collins and Sabine Nemet in Moretonhamstead ( Moreton for short, it’s one of the longest village names in England though not as long as the Welsh village names that take as much time to say as driving through them and sound like a bad goch).

We made pots ready biscuit fired to fire them in two kilns, one soda fired and a very big groundhog kiln, both wood fired, we were surrounded by timber. We had three days to glaze and pack both.

I felt very much a senior citizen out of younger potters who seemed to speak a different language, especially when it came to the internet and all things baffling to me, they all more or less lived off of the websites or instagram. I prefer face to face and to be able to handle the pots in reality.

We were treated to some very good lunches, in the evening we took it in turns to provide a meal out in the open air, the standard was frighteningly good and it was hard to live up to, for my turn, I made two curries and a cooling riata , with chapattis cooked on a kiln shelf directly on the fire.

With the shifts at stoking all done we had a party on Saturday the last night, firing a cone of made of sticks clay and bottles, the bottles melt out of the wall and tongues of fire shoot out , a fiery end to the week.

The following day once the party had been cleared away, we cracked open the soda kiln as usual the first encounter with your results are a bit different from what you think of them in a few days after.

After packing away their pots most participants went to Cornwall, I stayed put in my tent and tried to stay out of the way, with visits to Exeter, Dartmoor and just trying to catch up with sleep.

On the Thursday the Misses with two friends Graham and Tina came to stay. We decanted about 200 metres up the road into a rather good cabin with a real toilet shower and modern non camping amenities. With the cabin came two fishing lakes and a very lovely garden, it must be full of huge carp, I heard one splash It sounded like a human diving in.

After a lovely couple of days Sunday un packing of Nic’s big kiln happened, there were quite a few pots that were stuck to one another, I got a couple of really nice jugs out and a very nice bowl that had been slipped with Atherington beach slip, that I had gathered of off the beach .

On the way home we stopped at a antiques centre for tea and bun where I bought the biggest pot I have ever owned a huge brining pot for salting ham, I think it’s Victorian.

That is what they say is that, end of Holiday, Magaluf next year where you can get a proper cup of English tea and a gor blimey hat.

This year’s art trail was back at it’s usual time of year after covid forced it into late summer last year. The organization with a new team was excellent, much more signage with posters appearing everywhere.

we had over 80 visitors to our venue, I hope they all had a good time touring the different artists and crafts people.

The rain held off for all the days, there were a few blobs but it went away.

As part of the open studios we had a Raku firing on the May day , only one visitor risked painting a pot and risked the firing . I am struggling to get to grips with the new kiln they pots were rather dark, one new glaze worked properly, the other based on Gerstley Borate was a disaster, we nicknamed it ghastly borate.

Open studios is back in July with the Bognor coastal art trail.

My first event will be at the new POP up shop in Bognor by the arcade opposite the Regis centre, also very close to a cocktail bar. The exhibition sales etc will start at 10.00 on Tuesday 12th April .

I will be there with a full range of pots to look at in all the types i make.

We will be back here in June as part of the Bognor coastal art trail exhibition.

The saga has yielded a result, the first pots using the ‘ Bake house ash glaze ‘ are out and very nice they are too.

Making a mug each for the volunteers on Wednesday 25 mugs.

When I volunteer at the Weald and Downland museum on Wednesdays, I talk to the bakers and have scrounged some bread and a fantastic biscuit, it dawned on me that they were using one species wood in the oven. The hazel is cut from the woodland at the top of the site it grows on chalk. This means I have a ready supply of one species ash, they didn’t mind me scooping out the ash pit and taking it home where the hard work began.

Firstly it has to be soaked in clean water and the charcoal scooped off,

this can be dried and used ,maybe next summer for a barbeque, after all the ash has been soaked the ash sinks, you then change the water a couple of times this washes it. The water drawn off is very alkaline and was used in soap back in history, fat was mixed in and possibly some bran or herbs, this was allowed to set and used for washing .

Now follows the monotonous part, passing the ash in water solution through three sieves, starting large at 40 microns to 60 then finally 100 microns this took about 4 hours.

We are not finished yet, the water has to be drawn off, the ash dried so that it can be used in glazes. Let’s hope it’s all worth it.

A woodfiring is a special event, an event that only happens every six months and is a massive investment in time, materials and skill.

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Tina lets me have space in her big and beautiful kiln, I am not properly up and running at the moment so my pots didn’t take up much space, I had a box of bisc from Croydon and the remainders from the raku firing.

The kiln had been candled over night, a thumping great log had been put in the ‘firebox’ the one that doesn’t pull as well, which was rather smokey when properly stoked. We were late on the scene at 7.30 am, Tina’s husband Graham had been up at three doing the honours. The right firebox was being stoked with chestnut only, so Tina could have one type of ash for glazes in the future, a very sweet circle of use. The day progressed with the usual pyrometer/thermocouple problems, it was when cone 8 went over that we learnt that the pyro was only a hundred degrees out, it did show us the rise though. Eventually after homemade pizza the firing was over, the crash cool and then the doors were closed and all there was to do was the dessert.

On Thursday, three days later was the grand opening, there was no brass band though. It was clear from the start that it was a very good firing , good reduction and enough heat. My jug in the flame path was a pleasant surprise, we will be using that space again for taller pots. There was lots of blue this time. My pots were all very well fired.

A whole lot of pots, the kiln is now going into hibernation and will awake again next spring.