Cornwall – Page 8 – Bridget Macklin

Will You Still Love Me?

There is a move afoot to go and live in Cornwall properly this summer. I am extremely excited about this – I have handed in my notice for my teaching post and, whist I will miss the lovely children that I teach 3 days per week, I am very excited about the future . . . . .

Well, I think I am! I love Cornwall. It is, to all intents and purposes, my home anyway and the Roseland Peninsular is calling me in no uncertain terms.

013mod — The Roseland Peninsular is calling me.

But, and it is a very big but, what will happen to my ceramics?

Eventually I will have a studio in St Mawes. I have the planning permission for it, it will be easy to reach whenever I want to pop in for a few hours or just for 10 minutes to check on the kiln, I wont have to drive through the London traffic taking up to an hour to go about 6 miles, I can sip my coffee gazing at the weather coming in over the Lizard. What’s not to like?

Absolutely nothing! Except, it is a risk isn’t it – this jumping off the rat race. Wimbledon offers me so much. It may cost a bit but it gives me easy access to a fabulous customer base without whom I would have stopped playing with clay long ago. The twice yearly Open Studios, the next one of which is coming up in May, regularly sees 4-5 thousand people come through the doors. The feedback which they provide on the work they see in your studio is invaluable and the purchases that they make are extremely affirming of the effort which one puts in for the rest of the year. In addition, when the feeling leaves me and I don’t know what to do, there is always the kettle.

006 — Wimbledon Artists Studios gives me so much of what I need as an artist.

You can usually find someone to bounce and idea off, share a moment of frustration with or simply ask how they are doing. Then off you go, back to work feeling a release from the doubt or what ever was bugging you. In addition to that, the is Klay. Our new baby is growing fast.

12802780_589962844503429_4591393063765265220_n[1] — Klay is doing so well.

It has done so well in the short time that it has been in operation that the 12 of us had a long and deep discussion this week about what happens when we get to the end of our three months popping up in Camden. I want to be a part of this project. I believe that it has a great deal of mileage and, judging by the response that we are getting from our customers and also from Camden itself (whose generosity allowed us to get up and popping in the first place), I am not alone in this belief.

It seems to me that I ma going to need to find some way of having it all!

You Have Arrived At Your Destination.

I spent a very happy day at Klaylondon this week enjoying the space and chatting to the lovely people who dropped in to admire the work in the gallery. I think the gallery is looking amazing and it seems as if people are now beginning to talk about it and seek it out. I have it on good authority that we sold a remarkable amount yesterday, but I digress.

The point of this blog is to dwell for a moment on where one thinks one is going as an artist and whether you ever actually get there.

Whilst I was enjoying the gallery a number of people came in specifically because they had spotted one of my pieces in the window and wanted a closer look. In conversation with one of my fellow artists she told me that she thought it was clear that I had arrived; I knew what I was making; I had a great USP and all was going extremely well for me. I was flattered! I puffed myself up and preened my feathers and sat there for a moment basking in the compliment of a fellow artist.

On reflection though I realised how wrong she was. It may be true that I have found a way of working which is new and exciting. I may be making work which really pleases me and which gains a few compliments now and then. But arrived? I don’t think that ever happens does it? In the March/April issue of Ceramic Review There is an interview with David Westcott. He talks about how every firing includes some new tests and describes the opening of the kiln as ‘still like Christmas Day’ because of that feeling of the unknown and the frisson of excitement. Hail David!

I know what my friend meant. She was talking about the fact that I seem to know where I am going and here she does have a point. I do seem to have found an exciting way of expressing my interest in the landscape which is new and different and which I am thoroughly enjoying. On top of which, people appear to like my work, which is always a good thing!

bottom of tailing dam — First finished piece from my Cornish Mining project.

Indeed, when I opened the kiln last night and discovered the first finished piece for my mining project had fired even better than I could have hoped, I did get that lovely sense of having ‘got there’. But it is not so much that I have arrived, more that I now thing I know where I am going. This way of making works for me. However, as the interview with David concludes, ‘If you think you have made the perfect pop, you may as well give up.’

I haven’t! I am not about to! And I am delighted to report that every time I open the kiln is going to feel like Christmas for a very long time to come!