Its always a nail biter when Mark does a glaze firing as so much can go wrong, even in the hands of an expert! These pieces have been in various stages of production since the beginning of the year and many hours of work have gone into them so it was great to see them come out of the kiln successfully. The two tall vases have been constructed using coils, the bowl shaped vessel has a thrown lower half and a coiled upper half, and the three others are slab built. They are decorated with a mixture of glazes and oxides which have been dipped, dribbled and blown on!
The studio is going to be open for the week-end of 2nd and 3rd April so these pieces will be centre stage!
Meantime we have been clearing around the "pond", which had almost disappeared under a jungle of brambles and wild roses. Horrible job, battling with thorny plants which fight back even after they have been cut down and working in squelchy mud at the bottom of the banks. I think we've had three bonfires already and there's more to come.
We've just been to a plant sale and came home with rhubarb, wallflowers, day lilies and various other bits and bobs. It will make a nice change to do some planting rather than cutting down!
