Wednesday 30 November 2011

65...A beautiful day at sea

A lovely morning over the scrap metal pile
 A very frustrating weekend spent on the computer. I have decided to go over to the other side and start a new blog in Wordpress, but as with all these techy things, one has to learn the jargon, figure out the 'logic' of the programmers and try to make it ones own. I have got so far but realise I need to spend loads more time on it, so for the present I will continue in blogger whilst I figure it out.
Still, as I left to go back to the studio on monday morning, the sun came out in a spectacular way over the rather unlovely Newhaven......


....and continued in the same vein right across the channel and into Dieppe.

I arrived back at the house at exactly the same time as a new Workawayer from Sweden,

Simon
 he is only 19 but has proved very adept in the garden so far and has come up with some good ideas for improvements. He is a trained chippy, so I'm hoping for some new raised beds next week!

Bluebell

In the studio I have had a glaze firing which has kept the studio lovely and warm for a couple of days and has helped to dry out some work which is a rush job for a gallery in London. This piece will be joined by another to make a pair and will be attached to galvanised rod and drilled into timber. I recycle blue glass bottles from Neals Yard for the internal glaze and have yet to find an efficient way of crushing the glass....at the moment I am putting it into a metal bucket and hammering it (with glasses on) so if anyone knows a better way...please let me know.

Teals Tile

Teal, a previous busking workawayer has gone back to the States, but her tile came out of the kiln this week and has joined the tile gallery on my studio wall. Her Death Cap mushroom has come out a treat.

Find me now over at http://theceramicgardener.com

Sunday 20 November 2011

64...Art at St Ouen and a busy week

Higgeldy Piggeldy Rouen

We jumped on the train and went up to Rouen to stay with some friends we met through Couchsurfing this weekend. I have been to Rouen many times, it is the nearest city to us, but I had never discovered the part of Rouen that our friends took us to. It is full of little streets with medieval houses leaning in and out all over the place...ooh the maintenance!

St Ouen

We visited a huge old Abbey called St Ouen which has had all the furniture removed and is used now for exhibitions and concerts. Indeed Patti Smith played there last night, although we didn't know that until this morning so missed it, but we did hear some gorgeous music being played from up in the organ loft.

Pink and Lilac window above the organ loft

There was a chap standing up in the loft playing a trumpet accompanied by his wife on the organ, and the sound was amazing. This place is HUGE...like the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern so of course the acoustics make sound swell. Lovely.

Tree in snow and clouds

There was also a video exhibition going on. All around the Abbey were large screens with this tree projected on, each one different and each one beautiful. This one had clouds swirling around and snow falling down on it.

Singing Ringing Tree


This one reminded me of the one from the fairy tale,

being silly with the Tree in the sea
...and this one had waves crashing around it. Mesmerising, especially if you waited to see a seagull fly by every now and then.


Lots of thrown cones



With the high pressure we have had this week, the work has been going well in the studio..i.e things are drying out, and I was able to get this commision made.

Large Angel drying out


This was the 2nd one I made, the weather was so damp a couple of weeks ago I couldn't get anywhere with it.

Laila getting no help from Houdini


I still have Laila the workawayer here, and she is going great guns in the garden. After digging over this bit of garden,


She created a new little path with some old red bricks we had lying around,




She has also been busy creating in the studio, and came up with this great green man..well woman.

golden sunshine through the gate


The autumn continues mild and glorious here. The middle of November and we are eating lunch in the garden in T shirts. The sun being so low makes everything golden at the end of the afternoon and gave Henry the chance to take some lovely photos around the garden. Long may it last......
 Find me now over at http://theceramicgardener.com


Sunday 13 November 2011

63...Boats Crossing

We're all used to stopping at Level crossings and waiting for the train to pass, but as I go to and fro from Brighton to Dieppe I am often stopped by this crossing.....

Level Crossing in Dieppe

as the level crossing comes down the bridge swings around. A few years ago you often saw lads jumping on at the last minute and going around with the bridge....they've put a stop to that now, pity, it looked like fun.



Sometimes the boat coming through is huge and is on its way through to the back port for unloading, in the last few years that seems to be mainly the huge fins and posts for the Aeoliennes or wind turbines...



in the old days it was Bananas, but I suppose they are all flown nowadays.



Sometimes when the tide is high the bridge has to swing for tiny boats too....nightmare if you're late for the ferry!

Sunday 6 November 2011

62...A wet autumnal week and Maire Genevieve Gallois

Day one of new sculpture

I've been asked recently to make some larger sculptures so started this week on this one which is exactly the height of my kiln (27 inches). I've had this one in mind for some time but put off starting because of the amount of small pieces that have to be hand rolled to build it up.

Day four

Four days later and it was building up nicely...I covered it lightly to wait out the weekend...but found it collapsed down on itself the next morning...damn! This has happened once or twice before, and usually when the weather is humid as it has been all this week. These sculptures become very heavy because of the amount of clay added to the internal form and you have to get the additions on at just the right time...too dry and the larger pieces have a tendency to fall off...too wet and it collapses. Ah well, that's what prototypes are for I suppose.

Out in the garden Laila has had more success with her creations and has been building hazel structures which will be supports for all my tall flowers next year.

Hazel and Willow forms

This is a bed which contains Hollyhocks, Delphiniums, Alliums, Gladioli and other tall plants. The trouble is it is on a slope, and the plants end up flopping down...so she came up with this. It's an interesting form in its own right and will look good all winter while it's waiting for the flowers to grow.


Near my town is a little village called Petit Appeville. I have passed through it many times, but hadn't discovered these windows until this week when some French friends took me to see them as they knew where the key was hidden to get into the church. The windows were made by a really interesting woman called Maire Genevieve Gallois who was a Benedict nun for most of her life. Until much later on in her life she concentrated mainly on drawings.....

one of the stations of the cross

but people found them unsettling and disturbing and they were not really regarded as art until she was discovered by the art world when she was in her 60's.

Figure with beret

This was also about the time she started on her stained glass. The figures in these windows are really different from the usual that you see. They are charactures of people that she knew, and are funny, strange and often cross looking..especially in the first image I posted here. It seems strange that these amazing windows and drawings are hidden away in this little church with only the locals getting to see them on a regular basis.

Mist in the autumn trees

This has been a very unusual autumn. Three weeks ago we were swimming in the sea, and even now it is incredibly mild. The night temperature has been almost the same as the day and I still don't have the wood burner on in my studio.

This weekend though has been windy and the leaves have all come down with a 'flump',

Mistletoe trees

This has left all the Mistletoe exposed on the trees. People when they first come to Normandie often mistake these for large nests....they seem to particulaly like Poplar and fruit trees. This year there are loads of berries forming whereas last year there were almost none...on ours anyway. I expect someone will say that it's a precusor to a cold winter...but more likely to do with the spring I should think.

November Artichokes

The garden is also confused by the weather. The Artichokes which had started dying back, started up into growth again, and produced a second crop of small heads....which we enjoyed with lemon butter this week. I have also picked a lovely bunch of roses, and the clematis has a couple of large purple flowers out on display.

A silver day at sea

However the most exciting thing of the week for me was on tuesday when I caught the ferry back to France. Alongside the ship was a pod of dolphins jumping from the water, they were exactly the same colour as the sea and sky in the picture above. I was so excited I shouted out, and all the passengers on the boat ran to look...I'm suprised the boat didn't list to the side! I couldn't get my camera out in time...I was too busy watching...so you will just have to imagine them.