Jane Wheeler's Blog 2008 November

water and sky

Posted jane -->on 29th Nov 2008

today everything is watery. this morning first thing I was in the garden lighting the second burner on the kiln for my biscuit firing. the wild geese seemed to be coming in over Bale from all directions, some in long single skeins like lines of embroidery, others constantly reforming their vee formation, and chattering away. they have high and low pitched honks all together, oink oink, squeak squeak. I think some were on my friend Henry�s sugar beet and got disturbed because they came up� from the ground in a big bunch and then sorted out, but some were coming in from the coast as well. the sky was� translucent puffs of grey cloud. you could see� satin blue through them, and a jet shining in the sun high above.

later we walked around Bale. all the young barley covered in raindrops, and puddles reflecting the sky everywhere.

the skies seem huge now the trees are all sculptural nakedness against them.

we went in the wood by the solitary beech tree and walked around her. winter is here and she no longer provides much shelter under her graceful limbs, but their dark beauty is exposed now.

the winter trees remind me of a painting by John Nash. the criss-crossing branches are more lovely than anything man or woman can devise.

down at the bottom of Cake’s the old dead oak has fallen in the strong winds of the last week.

as I went into the meadow to get another shot we disturbed an barn owl in the grass. it turned out to be a very sad probably starving owl; it couldn’t fly and instead hopped away from us. probably one of the owls I photographed in the trees here� in february.

I rang the Hawk and Owl Trust, but we agreed that it would probably be better to let nature take its course with this one, its so early in the winter that if it isn’t making a living now, no amount of captive forcefeeding is going to get it going as a real wild survivor. something like 90% of young owls don’t make it. however, they told me that the kestrel I rescued in March did well and was released.

very sad, poor thing.

walking back down Sharrington road three skeins of geese converged and appeared to hold a conversation, winging back and round until all three coalesced and began to spill the wind out from under their wings, landing in a field out of sight, nearer the main road.

(3 comments)

sunshine at the beach

Posted jane -->on 26th Nov 2008

a turn around in the weather today – by lunchtime the sky was blue and the temperature soaring into double figures, just. my car said ten degrees. we went to the beach at Wells.

at 2.30 pm the sunshine was very low and very yellow, casting huge blue-purple shadows, and there was a thick shelf of cloud to the north over the sea.

with hardly a breeze blowing it was a pleasant and easy walk. Sal shone like a little gold dog. Tilda didn’t need the new coat, and had a lovely time drinking salt water and chewing on razor shells.

although the waves didn’t seem big, there was a steady roar of surf and in the distance you could see a mist of salt spray. this beach is very shallow for a long way out. a very low tide means a walk of almost a mile to the sea.

all the textures and shells in the sand were picked out by the strong light. here are razors. supposed to be good to eat, but I am a bit choosy about shellfish. they make pretty patterns though, and scrunch under your feet.

the fan shaped little scallop shell is common on this beach, it can be white or dark grey as well as this orangey colour.

the strange light made the dunes and their reflection glow. then ten minutes later the sky had clouded over and the sun had gone too low. walking back through the woods the sky to the south, banded mauve and yellow, could be glimpsed through silver birch trees,� there was a scent of wood smoke, and the sound of the pink-footed geese in their thousands coming in to roost on the Holkham marshes.

I found this pebble on the beach – like an elongated pigeon’s egg – a potential burnishing tool, but very pretty and nice to hold.

(no comment)

snow in the garden

Posted jane -->on 23rd Nov 2008

five inches of snow in the garden today, after yesterday’s inch or two, and then three hours of snowfall this morning. this is four and a half inches more than Tilda has seen in her life.� her verdict – fun but too cold.

I realised that she needs a coat to deal with real winter weather and ordered her a blue fleece lined waterproof on line last night.

She and Sal had a delightful scoot around and a couple of mock fights. they soon chopped the perfect icing sugar coating of the garden into rough meringue.

there is something about snow which domestic animals find quite entrancing. this unfamiliar cold white almost solid stuff. the dogs try to eat it. I have seen bullocks rush around bucking and kicking in snow. for any animal which has to survive outside it is not the same of course.

Sal has a fatal attraction to eating snow – he eats it greedily, then he needs to go out for a pee – all that frozen water stimulates his bladder – then he eats some more snow – and so it goes on ….

I have two peanut feeders and a seed feeder hanging up and the seed feeder is emptied daily. the tits like the peanuts and I can usually see two or three� and a waiting line up on this feeder. the finches come to the peanuts even if the seed feeder is not empty, but they find it hard work. they peck away at the nuts, looking uncomfortable; the extra calories must be worth it.

it is a while since I saw an icicle. I think the snow will last another day; the temperature is up, but not enough to melt the snow off roofs yet. the main road, I am told, has clear tracks in it, but the rest is snow.

it is very pretty, but it is annoying too. I have a stock sale on today and have only had three visitors; one from Bale walked, and the others live quite near and were mad enough to come out by car. because I have the sale on, I can’t go out for a walk in the snow.

this is old man’s beard or wild clematis, which makes a greyish-white fluffy beard over hedge and tree where it grows in the wild. I have seen it a lot in Devon, but not so much in Norfolk. it grows over the end of my washing line and attempts to smother a guelder rose and a blackthorn.

the foreigner in my garden – an olive tree. seemingly fragile, but in fact as tough as old boots.

(2 comments)

a nice little group

Posted jane -->on 19th Nov 2008

today I took sixteen pots to Ely, to Angela Mellor’s gallery. set in this pretty cathedral town, which was an island in the wet wilderness of the Fens in the Middle Ages, the gallery is an exquisite restoration of a sixteen century (or maybe earlier) building, and has a wonderful ceramics pedigree. Angela took it over from Ronald Pile (he restored and conserved the house), who previously had the Primavera Gallery in Cambridge, the prestigious offspring of Primavera in Sloane Street, London, which first showed legendary potters such as Lucie Rie and Hans Coper in the 1950’s.

the pink colour is traditional, made by mixing red earth pigment into the lime render. all the windows make it very light, with plenty of places to put pieces so that the exhibition is visible from the street. and it has a pair of pretty curved outer doors on the very corner.

this is one group of pots I took. it was hard to choose the rest, some of my new work is quite different, and its important to have pieces which work together.

In the end I chose some new and some old pieces.

I am pleased to find such a beautiful setting for this big bottle and three other pieces from the last firing I had (in September).� some pieces are from late last year, like this barium glazed flask

it was hard to find many pots which weren’t almost white, made me realise I must glaze more pieces with the copper/tin/dolomite and the wood ash/clay glazes.

we walked over to the cathedral, past the old bishop’s palace, a fifteenth century brick building, with “diapering”, the crisscrossing pattern of light and dark bricks,

and wonderful creatures attached, almost like gargoyles,

and a tripartite niche with intricate but badly weathered stone carving.

the cathedral is not so impressive from the West end, but there is some beautiful stone carving, very simple, as on these Romanesque arches.

the cathedral was begun in the eleventh century as a monastic church, and only became a cathedral in 1109. the Romanesque style of the West end seems severe and plain compared to the later airy confections of the Perpendicular and Gothic. these are be seen at the other end of the cathedral, but we didn’t get past the cafe.

between the gallery and the cathedral there are several splendid old houses.

and round the corner, near the cathedral, this enormous place lurks, with its chimney-like towers. at present I can’t identify it, but it looks as though it belongs to the cathedral complex.

another visit I think I would take a map and have a better look around.

(4 comments)

in the wood

Posted jane -->on 15th Nov 2008

we walked through the wood instead of along the field for a change today (trespassing).

dry and crisp leaves underfoot are preferable to soggy stubble and the soupy mud produced by the machines working on the new track.

the wood is separated from the field by a steep-sided ditch of running water with several trodden-down crossing places where the deer pass in and out. one is liable to immerse one’s boots trying to get across this.

further in there are several ponds; the wood is full of bogs, ditches and wet places. this pond is bigger than it looks, most of the surface is covered with fallen leaves.

there are many leaves still on the trees where they are sheltered in the wood, their bright colours catching the light against the dark branches.

the hazels particularly are at their prettiest.

the beech leaves are copper-coloured, and hazel bright greeny-gold.

this beech and its clones is my favourite tree – the queen of the wood, standing in her self-made clearing.

this oak at the bottom of Cake’s Lane is later turning colour than most.

approaching Patch Plantation I heard strange cries and found a red kite flying above the little wood, being mobbed by gulls. there were about six gulls and every so often one would dash at the kite, and one or other of them would let out a scream.

kites have not yet spread to Norfolk so this one must have been passing through. I have seen one once before, at Stiffkey sluice. they are big birds, their wingspan much wider than a buzzard’s. you can see the vee shaped tail clearly in this photo.

after four or five attacks from the much smaller gulls the kite disappeared into the wood, and I heard no more. on the way home a big flock of rooks and jackdaws settled and rose and settled again , the jackdaws calling loudly, groups flying off� until the whole flock made a big black cloud flying around� and calling in Hammond’s stubble field on Sharrington Road.

(1 comment)

soggy

Posted jane -->on 10th Nov 2008

the ground is sodden and slippery with all the rain. my new water butt is simply overflowing. I took a bucket out and ten minutes later it was overflowing again.

yesterday we went into the wood to visit the beech tree. the beeches are the most beautiful trees in the autumn, their leaves are copper and bronze, and there is a carpet of bright leaves on the floor of the open space the tree makes around itself.

looking up into the canopy the patterns and colours of leaf and branch are inexhaustible.

from outside the wood the beech looks as if it is all copper leaves, but the lower branches are still green.

now there are so few leaves one can see into the wood again. I have not seen any deer recently though. probably because there is a lot of disturbance at the moment; the wet and soggy track is being excavated and this summer the big workshop was put up in the corner.

on Cake’s Lane the bracken is turning into fountains of satisfactorily russet lace.

the sun was just catching the oaks in Patch Plantation, with their huge horizontal branches stretching across Clip Street.

back in the workshop this afternoon, with the light on, the big press mould is drying extremely slowly, while I am making some smaller dishes using a wok lid covered in muslin. the second one is stiffening upside down, with three little feet attached.

the first one came off the mould this morning, and I pinched it all around the rim to pull it up and give it a good profile, then later combed a spiral into the porcelain overlay. I like it, but it is really a bit tidy for my oeuvre.

this is a smaller mould drying out – using an old thrown bowl I made at college – it has survived the intervening years and gets used quite frequently. I have plans to make more or less spherical pieces with two presses from this joined together.

another new-ish shape arrived late last week.

(no comment)

more yellow

Posted jane -->on 8th Nov 2008

this past week has been traditional November grey, but the leaves are at their brightest, which offsets the gloom somewhat. the hazels are a little behind the rest, this one is along the edge of Bale wood.

one sycamore stands out; it is translucently yellow amongst its naked neighbours – ash trees which have mostly dropped all their leaves without even bothering to withdraw the chlorophyll.

field maples in Cake’s Lane are turning orange.

and under them pools of pale leaves reflecting the light.

oaks are more conservative and still have a mixture of colours.

and they stay very rusty compared to the red freckle on the field maple .

a tiny yellow snail on the road in the rain. I was just too late to catch her with her horns out.

and a field maple in glorious yellow, its leaves shining in the grey light, as if� the sunlight they have been absorbing all summer is returned to brighten the autumn day.

and now the sheds, cleaned up and ready. first the kiln shed, which has a great deal more space in front of the kiln now.

the workshop, with sturdy bench and vices installed. I have some more work to do in here, so that I can hang up all the tools.

the pot store, with two sets of shelves – I need to fix these to the walls before putting anything on them.

general store room; paintings stored all round the walls, clay and packing materials in the middle, with old financial records and other things one has to keep somewhere behind them. and the wonderful view out of the window in the door.

a new direction; the beginnings of a large press-mould for a big dish. I am launching into open shapes for two installation proposals, of which more later. but these moulds, which I will fire to biscuit temperature, will take a long time to dry out, and may be difficult� to fire successfully. I am using the industrial crank I bought. it is a terrible disappointment for making pots, its plasticity is almost nil, but I think it could be useful for these moulds.

(4 comments)

water and sky

sunshine at the beach

snow in the garden

a nice little group

in the wood

soggy

more yellow

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