Christmas is coming, the pigs are getting hot! O sorry, no, that’s wrong isn’t it. I think that I am suffering some kind of melt down post Open Studios and, as a result, I find myself messing about in the studio.
I was rummaging about looking for moulds to play with and I came across a piggy mould.
Now as an inveterate saver I have always believed in incentivising people to save and what better way that to give them a piggy bank for Christmas? Since Klay have taken a stall at the Burgh House Fair on 4th December, I thought that maybe I should think Christmassy for a while and so I got making. The trouble is, I am pathologically unable to make ‘sweet’ and hence a litter of subversive little pigs was begun. I have used strange clays, covered them with mono-printed slip decoration and thrown all kinds of glaze at them.
Inevitably, there have been casualties along the way – adding a think layer of Vulcan black slip to a gentle, porcelain pig was bound to end in tears – but two of the litter made it through the first firing and were looking pretty smart so I threw some random glazes onto them and fired them right up to 1230. Well you can either
live or die trying in my book! The result – pork crackling! Just one pig, the one which didn’t have a mix of slips to begin with, has come through unscathed. Actually I think it is better than unscathed. The mix of slips and glazes has caused some incredible blistering and now I am at that difficult point where I am trying to decide if enough is enough or whether I should be adding to the subversion by putting decals all over it. Hmm . . decisions!
Along the way I have also made a pile of tiny little tree decorations which can go to Burgh House but of proper making, there has been little sign this week. I think I need a few bracing walks on the beach to restore my mojo. Cornwall, here I come!
Bridget Macklin 