exhibition at Beaux Arts gallery in Bath

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.