News.

Updating website on 16TH JULY 2011

MY EVENTS DIARY FOLLOWS, after news:

Well, at last, I can update the news of my trip to China. Eleven of us, led by Christine Ann Richards, flew to Shanghai on 19th March and spent half a day in the wonderful museum there. The following day we flew to Guiyang in Guizhou province where we spent a week traveling, on many rough roads, to Rongjiang and Zhaoxing and other Dong and Miao minority villages. Billy and Wenying were our chinese guides who dealt with all logistics and were the best of company. We visited weavers, indigo makers and dyers, batik artists, incense makers, paper makers, tile makers, embroiderers, brush makers and of course, the purpose of the trip, a great many potters. Potters working on wheels turned with a pole or with their feet, throwing pots or sections of pots with quantities of clay that would keep me working for a week. We called our driver to stop at every kiln we saw smoke rising from, and we clambered along narrow pathways dividing paddy fields to get to the kilns and to see the pottery being made. The chinese were immensely welcoming and allowed us to watch them, laughing amongst themselves at these curious westerners. After that first week we flew east again to Nanchang and drove up to Jingdezhen and Sanbao where we stayed and finally unpacked and looked at everything we had bought so far. Sanbao is where we had access to studio space and where we started most days working with the local porcelain clay, experimenting with new ideas although most of us started nervously making only what our hands knew. Jingdezhen is built on porcelain rock and is the ceramic centre of China. They have been making porcelain artefacts for the imperial palaces for around four thousand years. On the city streets there are huge lorries laden with rocks and small wooden hands carts pulled by hand also laden with smaller rocks. These are taken to their place of work, the lorries to the factories where rows of hammers driven by deisel engines beat the rocks to fine powder and the hand carts go to the villages where a couple of hammers driven by water wheel also beat the rocks to fine powder. The powder is then slaked with water and is then ready to package as clay for use.

Jindezhen is proud of its heritage, they display their work from the moment you arrive at the road-toll station, the pillars there are clad with hand painted ceramic tiles, from there onwards the street lights, many walls and even the traffic lights are ceramic. In and around Jingdezhen we visited clay factories of all sizes, liquor bottle making, decal makers, potteries of every conceivable size and complexity. Museums and the antique market.

The whole time there we ate simple food that was plentiful and delicious, no one had tummy trouble. The Ceramic institute at Sanbao was heaven on earth and I could have stayed a lifetime. But I had to move on after three weeks to visit an old school friend who lives in Hong Kong, which was great, but another story. There are some China images below the diary.

The photographs on this website are taken by either Simon Cook or by me, I have credited Simon where his appear.

The following is a diary of events in which I am participating this year at which I shall be presenting my new work, see below.

.28th May to 5th June Cornwall Open Studios - My studio and showroom will be open to the public, see press or contact me for details.

10th, 11th and 12th June West Country Potters Marquee at Bovey Tracey, Devon

19th, 20th and 21st August Hidden Art Design Fair at Trereife Gardens,Newlyn, Penzance

5th & 6th November and dates during November (see press for details)

27th & 28th November

9th, 10th and 11th December

"SHINE Two" (CCA show at Trelowarren House, near Helston)

Charity Christmas Fair for CHASE (children's hospice) at Warren House, Warren Road, Kingston, Surrey.

9.30 - 3.30 - To book a lunch call 0208 547 1777.

I am still making the Jacobean design jugs exculsively for the National Trust gallery at Cotehele House which is a splendid Jacobean House, close to the Tamar River. The house and gardens are certainly worth a visit. I found a motif in the crewel stitch work on the extraordinary drapery in the 'White bedroom'. Using this image to unite each jug within "The Cotehele Collection" I then complete the decoration as whim takes me, based on research into Jacobean design, thus each jug is unique.

Below are six (out of 1400!) images from the China trip.