I have now made 2 sizes of name stamps. Small ones for smaller domestic wares, and a larger pair for bigger pieces. I do these small jobs before and after work in the mornings or afternoons. We have bee throwing now for parts of the last 3 days. Not all day, as there are still so many other jobs that need our attention. Like planting peas, beans and Kohlrabi in the vegetable garden. Planting out 3 potted peach trees that were rescued from the fire and spent the last year and a half in large plastic pots.  It’s almost spring and I need to get them in the ground before they burst their buds.

I also made a 550 mm high 3 legged stool, custom made to suit me for throwing on the new shimpo wheel. I fashioned it out of some fire wood set aside for firing the kiln.

We are slowly filling the bench tops with more pots.

Today, in the middle of the day, we were both heads down at our wheels opposite each other throwing in silence, listening to a CD. When the music stopped, neither of us got up to change the CD. We were immersed in our work. We worked on for some time in complete silence. These new wheels make no noise at all. Our meditations broken only by the sound of a lump of clay being occasionally slapped down onto the wheelhead. The 4 large windows were open and it was a warm, balmy day. I slowly became aware of the noise of bird song outside, the warbling of magpies and then the sounds of chickens walking past the window gently clucking to each other. In the distance I became aware of the faint sound of the Willie Wagtails chat, chat, chatting to each other as they do their aerial gymnastics chasing the invisible gnats and insects in the sky. There are also half a dozen swallows diving and swooping. They even swoop around inside the car port. Stopping to rest on the beams. Janine suggests that they are looking for nesting sites. 2 even flew in through the pottery window and then got stuck inside, not being able to find their way out again, always flying up to the clerestory skylights and banging into the poly carbonate with a repeated ‘thung’ sound. One eventually flew out through the open door. but the other had to spend the night inside. It flew out as soon as we opened up in the morning.

It’s uplifting to see a few birds establishing them selves in this garden again.

It was a moment of precious rural idyl. I realise just how incredibly lucky we are to live here like this. There may be lock down everywhere around us, but we are happy ensconced here in our own little creative world. There is food in the garden and eggs in the laying box. We want for nothing. (except maybe a pug mill)

I spent a bit of time making another smaller set of initial stamps, for when I start to make smaller domestic items like cups.

My next part time, after work, job will be to get the kilns firing. We have both a very small electic kiln and a gas kiln that I’m working on bit by bit. We are almost there. They just need some finer details sorted out. If all goes well we will have a load of dry pots ready for a bisque firing in the electric kiln and then followed by a glaze firing in the gas kiln.

Building a wood fired kiln will have to wait till summer, after the Open Studios Weekends – if they happen? which is starting to look unlikely at this stage.

But before that can happen, I need to make a massive number of glaze tests for that first firing. We have to test a lot of materials. some old bags of uncertain origin that have been storred for years in the part of the barn that didn’t burn, plus others that we have inherited and some that we bought from John Edye when he retired.
It was my intension to go out and collect a load of stones from around the shire to make my glazes. But that can’t happen now until lock down is lifted, as there is only one stone within 5 kms of here, and its rather dull, being a basalt. A 5 km limit really restricts my glaze choices to wood ash and basalt.
It’ll all happen in good time – sometime. I’m working on it. At least these sorts of jobs are ceramic related and a change from building work.

Nothing is ever finished, Nothing is perfect and nothing lasts for ever.