Jane Wheeler's Blog 2009 September

the Mirror, Minnow

Posted jane -->on 28th Sep 2009

yesterday it was still very calm, and I had an unofficial lesson in my Mirror dinghy, from MM’s skipper. the original idea was that he would sail MM as a safety boat and shout instructions at the first mate and me in the dinghy. (by the way, the dinghy has a name, Mythos, but I think that is too grand for me; she has won races, but I will only be pootling about in her and I would like to call her Minnow)

however, MM could not be got out, she was sitting on a bank of mud and there wasn’t enough tide to get any water under her. we stood for about twenty minutes in the creek, watching a lovely restored Albercore dinghy being launched and given a tow (about three times the size of� Minnow), and the hurly burly of motor boats being launched by four-by-fours (we have a very rude expression for some of these, the sort with an enormous engine at the stern that makes the bow rear up in the water). the Oyster Heron volunteered to tow us out far enough up the creek to get the wind in our sails, and then to chaperone – first mate went aboard her and had a lazy time with tea and biscuits, and the skipper got the short straw of crewing in my tiny cockpit, with no refreshments. I think he will be sore for a week.

the first five minutes were a little stressful – we relinquished our tow prematurely and had no room to manoeuvre. a huge seal trip boat passed and its wake lifted us up and deposited us straight onto the muddy lower bank of the creek. once we had pushed ourselves off with the paddles, we tried to tack but there wasn’t enough wind, and the next passing motor boat put us back on the mud. in the end we got there, with some paddling and some sailing, and rounded the next corner where the wind was in our favour. looking back we could see Heron also pushing herself off the mud, MM’s first mate did have to help out and could be seen wielding a paddle. once out of the creek I took the helm with some trepidation, but it all felt very safe really. we had just enough wind to sail nicely around, tack in and out of the moored boats, and follow Heron once she came past us.

you can see this is a bit different from the Cockle. we are in a tiny cockpit, and poor MM’s skipper is crouched in the crew’s spot. every time we tack the sheets get underfoot, if not around my waist. it’s fun though. I am sitting too far back, but it didn’t matter too much as it was easy sailing and the skipper’s weight mean the boat didn’t sit up as if planing.

I have to remember to sit up and smile! I must be contemplating the next tack.

we sailed out a long way, it was lovely, the water was clear and the bottom sandy, when the waterskier let up you could hear the curlews. it was nice enough for a swim if the water had been deeper. we were not tempted though. Heron was confident that the tide would not turn for a while yet, and that we would have the wind behind us coming back and would be able to goose-wing to the mouth of the creek. however, the wind died out, and the water got very shallow. we slowly got ourselves back into the channel, getting about walking speed from the main sail let right out. Heron, much further along than us, and with only about a foot of water, took her sails down and got the motor out. Minnow was doing alright, but as soon as the tide turned we would not have had a chance to get back, and when the bigger boat caught up with us she took us in tow.

I got more practice steering all the way back.

we had in fact cut it pretty fine, and Heron� could not land her crew on the jetty, so everybody got covered in thick black mud. Minnow got dropped off at the hard (not very hard, we got a small dose of black squidgy stuff too) amongst the four-by-fours reversing just about into the creek to haul their huge motor boats out. after that it was ice creams all round and home to clean up.

huge thanks to Chris and Alan and Margaret and Carole for all the TLC. I had a wonderful time.

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gliding amongst reflections

Posted jane -->on 27th Sep 2009

yesterday Miss Muppet’s crew took me along with them for a quiet little sail. it was quiet because the weather was quiet – a complete reversal from the strong winds we have had for most of September.

it was cloudy with just enough wind to get us along after motoring out of the creek.

we wove amongst all the moored boats and their reflections in the calm water.

Harvester, the restored Sheringham crab boat with her lovely curving lines and furled sails.

a good way of negotiating the mix of wind tide and obstacles is to follow another sailing boat. we followed this Oyster for several tacks.

Star of Hope, another crab boat, but much smaller.

here we are, following two Oysters around on the next tack, between more boats.

a Cornish half-deck fishing boat, unusual boat to see on this coast. her reflection undisturbed as we glide past.

what seems difficult and scary, avoiding all the moored boats and the large seal trip ferries as you tack up the channel, in fact becomes part of the enjoyment of sailing here. on a quiet day, anyway.

sailing past the real fishing boats, one is aware of a certain fishy aroma ….

a stately dance amongst the relections.

passing another real fishing boat …

and then the skipper handed over to me; this is the first time I have ever sailed a boat! it was very good to have the chance to try steering and handling the main sail on a nice big stable boat like the Cockle before sailing my little dinghy. note that I never did up my life-jacket yesterday. I certainly did today when we took the dinghy out.

after that I went back to being ship’s blogger, and we sailed around Juno, the sailing barge. she is most impressive, and I have a plan to do with her and my birthday next year.

I love all the different sails and masts she has.

a new Cockle with very dark sails.

a gypsy, a nice half-decker. on our way back now.

the light on the water was beautiful on this soft grey day.

this lovely boat we couldn’t identify. she sailed in goose-winged, those big sails catching a lot of wind.

almost back at the mouth of the creek.

we had the wind with us and nearly managed to sail all the way in, just the last bend in the creek the tide was going out and we had to get in smartly before the water ran away.

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morning light

Posted jane -->on 25th Sep 2009

up early today to take photos of the rust on the camper van (some honesty is required in this situation). the light was gorgeous, I should get up earlier and take better photos than these.

a seemingly unending succession of starry nights and sunny mornings this September. it is wonderful to see the Milky Way strung out across the sky; Venus is huge, a lantern hanging in the pre-dawn east, and in the middle of the night Orion swaggers in plain view from east to west, his jewelled sword and belt glittering, and red Betelgeuse glowing on his shoulder.

the sheep arrived back today. grass is in short supply in this lovely Indian summer we are having – the meadow has recovered somewhat over the last few weeks, and at least is green, though not much length on it. probably perfect for sheep. the rabbit plague is much abated; the myxomatosis has killed off most of them, but there are some survivors about.

we walked in the late morning, in bright sun, occasional cloud and a sharp chilly breeze from the west. the hedgerows are full of blackberries,� rosehip, hawthorn and in the lowest part of the road, guelder rose berries. I found that the blackberries taste salty along the Hindringham road; I suspect crop-spraying is the culprit, so I leave them be.

the barley stubble from the earliest harvest is sporting a few flowers and weeds, like this Hawksbeard

but mostly the dry weather leaves them ash blonde and sterile. buzzards from the patchy woodland sail and soar in the blue space above, and there are gulls, but hardly any small birds to be seen.

autumn is arriving, some trees are changing colour already, like this small sycamore.

I think this beech tree must have died, perhaps stressed by the drought, its leaves changed colour about a month ago and now its bare except for its mast.

horse chestnuts are always the first to go, but there is a disease which is affecting some; I think the ones in the churchyard at Langham might be affected, they had brown edges to their leaves a few weeks ago. this one seems healthy enough, its the first of several in this garden to change.

these two horses have been in the paddock next to the cemetery a few weeks now; they have eaten all the grass and are hungry. the chestnut on the right is looking very poor, and there’s no shine on his coat. its a shame, they should be getting supplementary hay, at least.

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exhibition at Beaux Arts gallery in Bath

Posted jane -->on 16th Sep 2009

my pots look very good at Beaux Arts, although it was a bit hit and miss getting them there – after the campervan’s brake fluid leaked on the way, they spent the night in van, in the yard outside a garage in Bath, had to be rescued in the morning and delivered by car to the gallery. a bit too exciting a trip for boxes of pots.

the gallery consists of two Georgian houses in a narrow street in Bath, so is made up of� six or seven rooms on a domestic scale. the paintings are by “plein air” painter (ie he works outside in front of his subject) James Hart Dyke, whose work records a series of journeys including being the “embedded” painter with the Grenadier Guards in Iraq and Afghanistan. plus a series of paintings of cake; perhaps a reaction to the seriousness of his war paintings, but still the same immediacy of the reaction of the hand and eye and the great facility he has with brush and oil paint on canvas. you can see more of his work on the gallery’s web site, here.

these highly lit alcove shelves make the pots look very precious. we have four pieces sold so far, including the dark grey porcelain one which came out of the last firing.

there are three pieces here which were made for Simon Martin’s Salthouse exhibition, Salt of the Earth. I met a collector on Saturday night who knows Simon well, and he has bought the black clay pot with white porcelain buttered over and three spouts, from last year’s anagama firing. I don’t have a good photo of it from the show.

another of the alcoves. they haven’t put all of the pieces out that I took, but will rotate them during the month the show is on.

another anagama piece on the floor, and at the top, one of the pieces I made soon after that, influenced by the wonderful book I bought on African ceramics, for Hearth and Altar.

here is another of my influences, Lucy Rie – I was delighted to find this pot of hers in the gallery. they show a good selection of potters, including Masamichi Yoshikawa�

I love his dripping blueish celadons.

also Takeshi Yasuda , and Robin Welch, one of my big influences when I started making pots again. this one is actually at Bircham Gallery as there are no images of his work on the Beaux Arts site at the moment.

so it is a wonderful gallery to be shown in, and they have been very kind to me.

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enforced holidays

Posted jane -->on 15th Sep 2009

this is Tilda on her holiday (Sal was there too of course) with Emmett.

we have been relaxing in Bristol while the campervan has been having its brakes rebuilt at huge expense. lots of lovely walks in parks and woodlands around here; King’s Weston, Ashton Court, Leigh Woods, and farther afield, near Keynsham in the Chew valley.

I didn’t take the camera on every trip, but here are a few pictures – firstly a view of the house at King’s Weston, a pretty Georgian pile with views across to the suspension bridge and Wales, surrounded by woods and huge lawns, with a pleasant tea room.

wonderful stone carving everywhere, in the grounds and on the house.

I love this abstract texture, on pillars surrounding big glazed doors.

and this pot-like fluted almost sphere grabbed me.

Leigh woods on the other hand go back to medieval church ownership and are full of old pollard oaks like this one, the remnants of ancient tree pasture. the practice of keeping cattle amongst trees is being revived with the introduction of six Red Devon cows to selected parts of the wood. they are in fact browsers and happy to eat low branches and shrubs.

Sal had a nice time too.

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third attempt at saggar firing

Posted jane -->on 5th Sep 2009

yesterday I opened the third go at this new world of saggar firing. it had been a slow firing, partly because I was trying to allow the heat to get into the saggar, and overnight I didn’t turn the pressure up as much or as quickly as usual. then it was even more difficult than usual to get a good steady balance of rising temperature combined with visible signs of reduction – sooting up of the cracks in the clay around the bricks at the front, and a flame from the flue exit. I had glazed all the pots in the front part with the same combination – the barium “chalk beach” glaze underneath and a layer of the copper/tin/dolomite glaze on top. I tried this on a couple of pots and called it “saltings” in the first saggar firing. these were fired pretty hot, as they were in the middle of the top shelf, and came out as a pale version of the “saltmarsh” copper/tin/dolomite. no such thing occurred on these six pots placed at the front of the kiln in this firing. I am not sure if it is cooler temperature, thicker coat of the second glaze, or lack of reduction, perhaps a combination of all three, but they were all a soft metallic grey or greenish grey with orange breaking and copper green on the edge of the join with the barium. plus two had crawling and peeling off, which is actually rather pretty but very fragile.

on this one it is a small area, and we are going to show it like this at the Bircham Gallery in October. on the other it was pretty well all over, so I took it all off, and I still like the result.

they both have scratched lines and little bumps under the glaze, which are more obvious where the glaze has come off.

this is the white stoneware, and it is one of the pieces that went up to about three or four hundred C in the first attempt with the cardboard saggars. the orangey blob is where there was a carbon stain on the piece – a very fortuitous stain.

as for the pieces which were inside the improvised saggar – in which the sawdust had burnt right away again; and this was no doubt due to air getting in low down, as Sebastian Blackie suggested it would be, since I used two big silicon carbide shelves which have slits in them – they were mixed, and there was very little black or grey, but I am still pleased with the result. one thing I hadn’t expected, although I should have, I guess, was that the sheet of cardboard which had been left in had an effect on the firing, and strange brown ashy remnants of it were still there when I opened the saggar up.

where it landed on pots it left a shiny glazed surface.

first of all, I couldn’t be more pleased with this piece, the carbon marks and flashing work so well with the porcelain marks on the toasty st thomas clay.

now I have a group which work well together. (they will be in the Bircham gallery show too)

this little porcelain incense burner has been fired three times now, in my vain attempt to get it grey and black, but now it is really quite interesting, so I will probably leave it like this. it has a piece of cardboard glaze on its shoulder.

the top temperature of the firing in the saggar was not too different to the firing in the front of the kiln, although a section of the ceramic insulation board I used as a lid bent and collapsed, doing this to the cones

but as far as I could see they are melted to about the same extent as the ones in the front.

this has been affected much less by excessive heat than the similar but bigger piece in the previous firing, but the stains and flashes are more overt.

I am giving this a rest for the time being as� the Beaux Arts exhibition in Bath is going to take up most of the coming week, but I shall buy some low firing ball clay to make the right sort of slip and have another crack at cardboard saggars as soon as I get some time, thanks to Sebastian Blackie’s kind advice and encouragement.

the rest of the pictures of this firing are here.

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Morston (bank holiday)

Posted jane -->on 1st Sep 2009

my mirror dinghy has a posh new raincoat, so we took her to Morston, rigged the mast and sails and left her all wrapped up. the cover is very fancy, collar round the mast, a zip and velcro to fasten.

sailing was impossible, Miss Muppet is moored down a creek and hardly any water got down there� as the tide was so feeble. the bit of water there was at high tide was buzzing with people trying to squeeze in past the seal boats, mostly motor boats.

MM’s spaniels were very happy splattering about in the mud at great speed.� Judy disappeared past the bend in the creek and Lily just zigzagged from one bank to the other.

we walked across the marsh and back down the side of the creek as the tide got to its full height and all the boats hustled to get out to the lagoon.

the un-named red Mirror is moored up here. I envy her oars. I missed a pair on ebay this week. I have paddles, but they aren’t as pretty.

high and dry today.

it’s a long time since I took the dogs walking at Morston, the attack on Sal last year put me off, and I have missed it. Tilda is mostly safe to let off the lead around the creek and saltings, except when there are children. she disapproves of them and barks, which is very embarrassing for me and frightening for the children, so I get her on the lead while there is time. at least on the marsh you can see everybody coming.

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