Jane Wheeler's Blog 2015

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Posted jane -->on 16th Dec 2015

and at home there has been some sunshine in spite of the generally damp mild and grey late November/early December

early walks allow for sky appreciation

as well as catching up with a backlog of work, sending knitwear orders off in time for Christmas in the shops in Japan, Germany, Italy ….

there were still leaves on the trees

to shine in the sun’s backlight

hedgerows green

winter wheat and autumn barley coming through

but bare twigs make better patterns

one pauses to admire the trees

especially where there are people in them … my young friend Ben Carter, expert tree surgeon, spectacular and graceful in his element.

at last back in the shed making pots

though getting clay to dry enough

just to roll out without sticking to everything

never mind to stand up

has made for several days without being able to get on. however the mild weather means no extra heating is needed, all to the good.

then there has been the much anticipated publication of my calligramme poem Lunan’s Guardian in the Rialto. so exciting!

you can find the background to the writing of this in a post almost a year ago Lunan.

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part five the Loire

Posted jane -->on 13th Dec 2015

from St Jean de Luz I drove to a small village in the Loire valley region, Candé-sur-Beuvron, to stay at the Auberge de la Caillière, a small hotel with a very good restaurant, where I had a gourmet meal for a very reasonable price. from there only one and a half hours drive to Le Mans where we would stay before getting the shuttle at Calais.

there was time to visit a couple of Loire valley châteaux, which I’ve never done before.

this is the Château de Cheverny, an iced cake of a building with a big hunting pack of hounds kept in the grounds.

it’s difficult to tell quite what period this architecture is,

it was originally built in the seventeenth century and renovated in the eighteenth, lost at the revolution but bought back by the family at the restoration in 1824.

on the way to the next planned château visit, I passed this one which is in the middle of its village.

this looked much more romantic and thoroughly medieval

with towers and turrets and small windows

and small gardens rather than a big park

it was shut because it was lunchtime, so these are just from the street.

then we arrived at Chaumont sur Loire, which is a pretty spectacular château. this is the toy farm belonging to it.

all nineteenth century

it was founded in the tenth century by Odo 1, count of Blois, rebuilt in the fifteenth century and then extensively renovated in the nineteenth century, so I would say most of what you can see is nineteenth.

there is a big focus on garden design and landscape art in the grounds, which is exciting.

it is perched on the edge of steep banks above the Loire.

and has a real fairytale glamour.

the wonderful stables are nineteenth century. each stall and box has a horse’s name above.

it was in the stables that I first discovered the installation art which is a special feature

vertical garden art …

and all sorts in the park

it was very cold, a piercing wind

but a fascinating walk, worth getting frozen

we found a dog cemetery in a little grove

I think this was my favourite piece

the textures and lettering burnt into these attenuated figures make them fascinating close up.

by then we were very cold and unfortunately there was no café or tea room. we wandered through the toy farm, the donkey house, and then the winter gardens

which were a little warmer

the cactus house was the best

then on to the rather mundane but extremely comfortable and well known to us Ibis hotel on the outskirts of Le Mans.

the next day our return to the UK was uneventful, there didn’t seem to be any extra security at the shuttle, Tilda’s paperwork was all correct, and the car got us home ….

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part 4 returning – storm

Posted jane -->on 12th Dec 2015

I decided to leave a day early as the weather forecast for northern Spain wasn’t looking good – wind and snow – in the event there were a few splats of sleet on my windscreen but nothing more. but I left in the dark and got myself to St Jean de Luz in the south west corner of France in daylight, and in time for a walk on the beach. only a week after the Paris attacks I wasn’t sure about the border arrangements either, but although there were black clad police and guns at the péage tollgate, and they were stopping some people, we drove straight through.

we stayed in a dog-friendly studio apartment hotel on the cliff-top in Anglet, with big sliding windows onto balconies, and a storm view. the wind nearly took off the car door when we arrived. I was pleased to discover there were electrically operated metal shutters for these windows as the nearby lighthouse flashes all night.

we found a steep road down to the beach

behind this particularly hideous hotel – and that’s the one we stayed in on top of the cliff.

the sea was very rough, big waves coming in. I have to say I was very very glad not to be on the ferry for Portsmouth.

we explored the front and found the recommended seafood restaurant

fish supper for me

a noisy night from the wind, but otherwise very peaceful

next morning another lovely walk on the beach. those waves were very intimidating though.

you could feel the impact of them even at this end of the beach defence. I would not have stood there – he must have got a bit wet!

very coarse sand

and Tilda impervious to my slight paranoia, though on our way back along the front, I noted that some waves were washing up where we had walked ten minutes before.

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part 3 wilderness

Posted jane -->on 11th Dec 2015

early winter morning looking across the olive trees to Alcuescar, shrouded in mist.

on the lower side of the finca and behind the house, there is a wonderful wilderness

a maze of dry stone walls

boulder castles

cattle paths – they wander where they will here, shouldering aside all obstacles,

so fallen walls as well

everywhere neglected cork oak scrub

massive granite outcrops

covered in moss and lichen – one of the lichens produces a strong purple dye and used to be exploited for it.

hidden away is this building, still well maintained.

it looks as though it could have been used for raising and fattening iberic pigs

but there’s no activity at the moment, just Joachim’s cows wandering amongst the rocks and trees

trees that are never harvested for their cork.

climbing through the rock piles and trees at the bottom of my finca you find massive boulders

like breaching whales

the sierra always brooding over

and then further over I came across this roofless choza

built against a vertical granite formation

it must have had a roof of poles and perhaps tiles once, though there are no shards or remains

furnished with a stone basin

cupboards

and an external staircase – so did it have a flat roof? or another storey in timber?

a puzzle, but a beautifully built one.

back to the house

through more fincas

some abandoned, some cared for

on my own, wild asparagus berries – very christmasy

and the olives waving a welcome.

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part two on the finca

Posted jane -->on 3rd Dec 2015

well, back to the place I haven’t been to since May 2014

this is why I’m selling it, I don’t have the time for it, nor the money to run two houses

we arrived safely, but it turned out that my eleven-year-old car had some electronics issues due to loose wires. luckily my friends recommended a very good mechanic in Montanchez and it was repaired with very little fuss, though a new condenser needed.

the finca is a very special place which I will always hold in my memory

some olive trees had good crops, but they had a heavy prune last year. the soil is pretty poor so these trees will never be bowed down to the ground with fruit like some in the neighbourhood

we are on a west facing slope so evening sunshine is the best

sun down at about 6pm

in the morning the sierra shades us until about 9.30

making plummy blue shadows

there had been rain the previous weekend, so everything very green, but not enough to make the streams run.

mossy boulders all decked out in emerald

though in fact there’s been no more rain for a month now, and the whole time I was there it would get to twenty centigrade and more in the afternoons. bare feet on the porch. I got some vitamin D through my legs and feet.

I came with two things to do. one was to get all the paperwork on the house up to date for the sale. the other was to remove precious personal possessions, like this oil painting (by me ’97-2000)

and this one, just over six feet wide, the other exactly six feet. you may wonder how I would get them in the car, but in fact oil paintings can easily be taken off their stretchers and rolled up, as long as you keep the paint on the outside. they were absolutely filthy with dust, flies, fly spots, and bird droppings. a good thing they were well varnished, so easy to clean with a damp sponge.

kelims also to be folded up. good gypsy belongings, easy to break camp.

so a slightly sad time, and also a bit stressful, finding out what needed to be done and paid for too.

but also magical as always, and wonderful to see my very good friends at Finca Al-Manzil. this is Manfred seconds before he tipped himself over into the pool fully dressed and drowned his phone. he has proved since that the blow-up canoe is perfectly safe in a larger body of water.

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the last journey south part one – Sens

Posted jane -->on 1st Dec 2015

this trip south to stay for the last time in my house in Spain involved more exploration of France than usual. my first

stop was to deliver pots to my dear friend Philippe Model, for his new shop Philippe Model Maison in the rue Condorcét in Paris, opening soon.

he lives in Sens, south of Paris, in his family home, a seventeenth century farmhouse with four hectares of

river

avenues

trees

ex-tanning factory

fascination

hat-making workshops (he is a famous hat designer)

theatrical sets (he does that too)

secret places

hoards

shambolics

objets/things

hidden floors

the king of the labyrinth

photo-scenic corners

and a delicious house

with its ancient high wood-lined vaulted ceilings and attics

and courtyards

after this adventure I drove all the way across France to the south west and over into Spain

where we stayed in a very nice hotel that allows dogs and doesn’t even charge extra

in the beautiful city of Vitoria-Gasteiz. from there a six hour drive to the finca.

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the last firings this year

Posted jane -->on 30th Oct 2015

two firings to finish all the work I made this summer, and so that I have new pieces for the Bircham gallery and the CPA – as a professional member it is my turn to have a small space in the gallery, in Bloomsbury, opposite the British Museum, at the end of November.

in between I have to go to Spain, to wind up my house there, fill the car with things I want to keep … store my apples ….

so, firing number one. I am getting down to needing to mix more glaze and it’s a little thinner in the bucket than it used to be

plus I am interested in what is under the glaze and the slip, the runs of black oxide, so thinner glaze works for me ….

this firing has hardly any blue, the glaze is just not on thick enough

except where I added extra; each spoon had another spoonful of glaze.

but without the thickness of glaze there were some lovely pearly surfaces

and pots I’m really pleased with.

this has a surface like marble, it’s st thomas white clay. despite the layer of slip the clay body makes a huge difference.

smooth clays seem less absorbent and the glaze runs more

all the little pots except one have a graininess under the glaze which I suppose is the crackle slip …

and I’m puzzled by the complete lack of reduction of the clay body in the front of the kiln. I did have to clean out the front burner, so it is at max efficiency.

.. for the next firing I redipped all the pots; I had glazed everything at once, and thought I would have more blue – ie thicker glaze in the last firing if I put another coat on. on one the doubled layer was too thick and it came off so I had to cover up the gap with brushed on glaze.

I have a lot of decisions to make about very small tweaks when firing, tiny turns of the pressure tap, tiny movements in and out of the bricks that partially block the flue to get the reduction right. another decision is when to turn off the gas and close the chimney and ports and clam up. I felt the last firing was a little underdone, so this firing combined thicker glaze with an extra half hour at top temp. perhaps a bit risky …. in the past I have turned down the pressure for this time, and sometimes it seems nothing has happened that’s different. so this time I tried turning down just a little … hardly at all … and the pyro went up from 1257C to 1261C. anyway when I opened up 3 days later I could see that cone eleven had gone right over …

and the glaze had run quite a lot

mostly rather beautifully, and I certainly got lots of blues (the glaze is a chun which needs to be thick and full of bubbles to get the blues, as they are entirely optical)

on this one the over-runs were a bit excessive, these tusks will have to be ground down

this I love the best

and this one. the glaze has crawled somewhat …. I had left it glazed for a month or so, then put another layer of glaze on, I would guess that this is what has caused it.

autumn continues …

objects of beauty, ephemeral as always

hoping these liquid amber and maple prints on silk are not too ephemeral

I will be back in Bale late in November and back to making with clay soon after that I hope ..

meanwhile you can find the full firings on my dropbox pages 17thOct

and 25thOct

it’s been a busy year, four and a bit exhibitions to make for, pack and deliver, plus attending three workshops, dyeing things for the knit business, running the knit business!, learning about dyeing on the hoof, particularly the indigo vat, and scooting up to Scotland to visit the offspring whenever possible … some of the galleries who stock my pots have been a bit neglected, I am sorry. I hope to do better next year.

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a downloadable book from the blog

Posted jane -->on 25th Oct 2015

I just uploaded this ebook, to blurb, it’s the photo essay from my blog, an ebook version of the expensive one I made with Milk books (see previous post) with the spanish chapters taken out and replaced with Norfolk ones. it’s also available as a print on demand physical book, 7″ square with 116 pages, not cheap though, between £ 21 and £34 plus shipping, depending on whether it’s soft or hardback, here book

I do wonder whether I should edit the number of pages down and do it in a larger format (this is seven inches by seven inches)

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my flip book

Posted jane -->on 23rd Oct 2015

this is just a short post, I thought some of you might be interested in a flip book from a book I put together from the blog a couple of years ago here, you can read it online;

http://www.milkbooks.com/flip-book/default.aspx?ProjectId=d279eccd-99bd-49bb-a52c-d6590c5353d4&OId=227665&OLId=1282705

it is actually available as a beautiful physical book from Milk Books, but it is really expensive.

enjoy!

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dawn geese

Posted jane -->on 20th Oct 2015

getting up a bit earlier has its rewards

the way clouds are lit by the low sun never stops attracting me and my lens

different weather makes for different skies over the same landscape

at this time of year we have an autumn dawn chorus – pink-footed geese flying inland from their roosts on the coast at Stiffkey and Holkham to forage in the fields. they take spilled grain from stubble fields –

then once the sugarbeet harvest starts they come to glean the remainder that the machine leaves; it trims the tops off and sizeable pieces are left on the ground.

they do flock onto fields of winter wheat and can cause damage (the RSPB publishes guidelines on managing this ) but they prefer the calorie-rich beet. during the second world war artillery practice on the coast stopped them using their roosts, and during my childhood they were not a feature of our skies, but in the mid eighties they started to return, and now they migrate from Greenland and Iceland in their thousands.

they are a stunning sight in the mornings here in North Norfolk, skein after skein flying over fast, swapping leaders, gabbling away in pink-foot calls of pink pink and oink oink, not the farmyard goose’s clanging honk, and nothing like canada geese.

you hear them echoing across the sky for a few minutes before you see them. here outside my house there were two more skeins out of shot for my iphone, but visible with the naked eye.

a double treat, pretty skies and the spectacular geese. each skein can be over a hundred birds.

though the geese are just as happy to fly on a grey morning ……

meanwhile other delights of autumn are slow to get going, the trees just beginning to turn.

our best colour is from the field maples

but I have seen some fiery sycamores this autumn. ornamental trees are dropping brightly coloured leaves in gardens; I have been benefiting from my friend’s red foliaged-not-quite-sure-what-tree but some sort of maple, it really looks like a red sycamore, and her liquid amber with beautiful star-pointed leaves, both of which make contact prints of mauves and purples on silk and wool.

those mornings when it’s not raining and the sun lights up the clouds seem a bit rare this autumn here in the east so I make the most of them.

also making the most of the damp mild nights, I put in salad leaf seeds and am crossing my fingers. I had a great success with them the winter before last. apples are ripe now, I am storing as many as I can, I have a huge crop from three little trees.

pleased to say I can see no sign of ash die-off on the superb ash trees in our lanes. they drop their leaves first of all the trees, after they turn yellow-green. here the early sun turned them gold.

hoping for more sun-lit mornings soon

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