Category Archives: Blog

Its a Kind of Magic . . .

My obsession with clay means that I need my hands – a lot.  About a year ago I noticed that I was encountering a lot of pain in my left hand.  This worried me.  In fact it worried me so much that I have been keeping it from my nearest and dearest.

I did, however, speak to my GP who basically said that it was arthritis, that this is particularly prevalent in women of a certain age and basically that it was tough. It would get worse as I got older.  I did not find this encouraging or helpful.  The pain comes and goes but it is there most of the time.  It affects my enjoyment of ceramics and it very much affects my ability to helm my sailing boat as well.

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Is it time for a tiller with a spade handle?
In fact I have been contemplating one of those tillers with a handle at the end so that I could alter my grip on the tiller.  It seemed that it was either that or give up racing.

 

Until today!

Today I visited the Grand Designs Live show at London’s ExCel centre.  We were there to find a few things such as bifold doors and ground source heat pumps for our wonderful Cornish home.

I had absolutely no idea that my worries about my hand were about to be resolved .

Whilst my dearly beloved partner was having yet another in depth conversation with some guy about the U values of different solar panels, I drifted off – literally as well as metaphorically.  I found myself gazing longingly at a shiny new Lexus and then I turned around . . . .

Watching me was a man with a weird machine.  “I can cure you,” he chanted with a cunning smile!  No it wasn’t really like that at all.  Never the less, the man from Eurotherapy was armed with a machine and I could feel myself being suckered into giving it a go. Two minutes later the pain in my hand was gone!

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After two minutes I was pain free!
Better – all the movement had returned – I could bend my thumb to touch the palm of my hand again (not possible now for about 6 months) and the swelling had been reduced.  Wow!  If this is what 2 minutes does, imagine the possibilities.   When the pad was removed I suddenly felt a strange popping inside my wrist.  The salesman explained that this was the uric acid crystals breaking down – already????  And yet, I really did not have, still do not have, any pain – 6 hours later.

 

I don’t think I am the kind of person who normally falls for gimmicks.  I have managed without copper bracelets and magnetic pressure thingies and acupuncture until today.  But this thing got me.  I am now the impoverished owner of the device.  My sailing days and, more importantly, my potting days feel safe (for the time being) from the grim reaper and, just to make me feel even better, the thing is tax deductible because I need my hands for my work!

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So if in the future I don’t hear you calling me it is either because:

a. I am in the studio in Wimbledon making things out of clay,

b. I have gone sailing,

c. I am strapped to a vibrating pad getting some part of my anatomy shaken to bits.

I shall keep you posted on how it goes because I suspect that I am not the only female ceramicist approaching that time of life when things begin to get stiff, sore and swollen!

Playing With Other People’s Memories!

This week I took on a new commission.  I spent a happy hour in my studio  with the customer.  We poured over the architects drawings of a beautiful looking Arts and Crafts style house which, in all probability, I will never see;  We discussed maps of the area where the house was built in order to get a feel for the place and to understand it from her point of view and then I started work on a test piece to explore the possibilities which she is hopeful that I can achieve.  I began by examining samples of the subsoil for stickiness and lime – stickiness is a good sign as it indicates a high proportion of clay in the soil whereas lime is a nightmare  because it decomposes in the kiln and then later on it very slowly and subversively destroys the ceramics made with it.  Fortunately there does not seem to be any in this sample.

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Lime can be a nightmare – slowly and insidiously destroying a piece at a later date, as the pitting on the far side of this vessel demonstrates!

It is a funny feeling working with somebody else’s special memories.  On one level it makes me feel quite excited.  I love the idea of creating a piece which has real meaning to someone else and yet, at the same time, there is a massive sense of responsibility!  The clay can speak for itself.  The colours and contours which appear as I work can only tell of the landscape from whence they came.  So long as I relax and just let it guide me, the vessel should tell of the place which is so important to my customer.  The anxiety on my part is that I am playing with someone else’s memories.  Knowing how important my own memories are, I really appreciate the trust that this lady is putting in me to work with hers.  She has images in her head which I can never be party to and yet, somehow, the finished vessel must give sufficient of a hint to these pictures that it sparks a sense of well being in her and in the person for whom this vessel is a gift.  I am really looking forward to working on this vessel but a cannot claim for one minute that the project is worry-free.

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Even if I were to travel to the area the images in my head would not be those of my customer.