18th February

Well I missed posting a blog last week because I was fighting valiantly with my computer - I think, eventually, I won, although the victory was rather pyrhhic as it still rules my life. I also spent almost no time in the studio as it was half term, and my daughters, though teenagers, had all sorts of projects and events which they needed transporting to, and there were various DIY chores around the house to be done...yawn yawn. Nice to spend some time at home though - a rare commodity these days.

However, I did run a course last weekend in handbuilding - had some excellent students who produced some really exciting work - coiled, slabbed, pinched, and even some throwing. I have run quite a few weekend workshops in my studio and I meet some very interesting people that way, and with the best ones its always a two way process with me getting as much inspiration from the participants as they from me. It really gave me a thrill when I went into my studio this Sunday past and saw the students' work drying out - they had really been quite experimental and daring.

Yes I had a few hours in the studio on Sunday - I felt really inspired. I have been working on a couple of pieces for some time - snatching half an hour here and there - which is not an easy way to work with clay as you need to manage the drying so carefully if you want to carry on working on a piece - and on Sunday they really came into focus. That is how I work- I will start making and will have some idea in mind, but this will be developed as I go, and the original idea could change quite dramatically. I can spend quite a long time just looking at a half formed piece, or working on it, refining it, but not actually finishing it - delaying finishing it whilst I consider the options. This is probably the most exciting bit for me. Once I've worked out where I want to go with it, it will probably be finished quite quickly. But that working out can take quite a long time - and will probably also involve a bit of sketching, research and revisiting the wealth of visual imagery I have collected over the years - much of it from the natural world and with a scientific slant to it.

I am quite interested in working in pairs at the moment - looking at how two things might relate to each other or fit together - or not as the case may be. But I also quite like the idea of repeat forms in nature - so that what might seem to be a seed pod might also be a body part or a microscopic organism or an ancient long extinct creature. I seem to be working on both of these ideas at the moment.

I have a wood-firing at Rufford coming up so I am hoping to get these pieces done in time for that. I also need to start preparing for the exhibition which I have in London in June - I have been asked to put three pieces in a sculpture exhibition in a fairly well-known ceramics gallery in Greenwich. The gallery owner particularly liked the wood-fired pieces, and as the wood-firings are far and few between, and a group effort, it is really not something you can leave to the last minute.

Must go do some teenage taxi-ing - more on the wood-firing next week.

Have a good week!

Sarah