Gifts
For me, for you, and for the birds too
It’s a beautiful day — still cool but the sky is blue and the sun is shinning, not always a given in Spring around here. In fact, March has been rather different than previous years, or at least it feels that way. I often wonder — climate change and extreme weather events aside — if my perception that a certain month or season is different from the previous year is more down to how I am feeling rather than to the actual weather out there.
Today I want to show you what came out of the last firing but I would like to start by letting you know that I am changing a little bit how I publish here.
In April, it will be two years since I started this newsletter, and a lot has changed since. I have learnt a lot about my ability to consistently show up on the page, as they say. I have come to realise that writing is something I enjoy doing when I truly have something to share, but it’s not something that comes naturally; it requires effort and above all it requires time. I am not a writer, I am a maker. Writing about making is great and one of the best ways (for me) to share my work, but it does take time away from the actual making. It’s still a million times better than making reels, and that is why, despite the fact that my posts seem to be getting fewer and fewer views, I am not moving away from Substack. Because, aside from having reawaken my love of reading, and built up my confidence about sharing what I write and what I make, Substack has also allowed me to make some really amazing connections with people I would never otherwise have “met”. That’s something that no number of subscribers or views can beat.
So, and knowing full well that the “rules” tell you to post weekly in order to “grow”, I have decided to allow myself to post less often. Starting with this letter that you are reading now, it will look like this: once a month, likely on the last Tuesday, you will receive the main Clay on my mind newsletter. It will include, but won’t be limited to, a round-up of what I have been making in the studio and also of what I have been reading/watching/doing/learning, etc. I have found it interesting to read such lists from others and always get a lot from them, so hopefully I can contribute back and share the work of other makers/writers that I have enjoyed. And if you find even just one thing interesting from my list it will have been worth it.
Then, occasionally, I will also send out either an Interview with a potter1, a Postcard, or a Portuguese expressions post — and this will happen mid-month.2 So, in actual fact, you may still receive two posts per month from me, but this way, when I only send out one, I won’t feel like I am not keeping my part of the deal.
Right. Housekeeping done, on with today’s post…
I am sitting in my “local” cafe, looking out to the small park it borders. I came to write. I also came to refresh the Shelf, which hasn’t seen much action lately or for the last few months for that matter... Last time I changed the display was in Autumn and nothing has sold since. Inevitably, I am starting to question the point of the Shelf. Still, I came, packed up the old pieces, priced the new ones and put them up. They are lighter in colour, feel more Spring-like. In any case, I did my part, I made the work and I put it out there — the rest is not up to me. Let it be.
Let it be. I guess that is the point — the gift — of the Shelf.
From the kiln
It’s always exciting to open a glaze kiln — even a low fire one — and this one was no exception. It was a good firing. The elderberry sets came out lovely, and so did the espresso beakers.
The tray, I really love, but on closer inspection will have to be re-glazed and re-fired to correct unevennesses (is that a word??) in the glaze. I actually listed it on Etsy for a day before quickly taking it down — it will return soon though, hopefully.
One of the elderberry sets already has a home — if all goes well, by the time you are reading this it will have arrived in Portugal where I hope it will make someone very happy. The other set is now no longer on the Shelf and no longer also on Etsy.**
**Addendum a few hours after posting: the other set has now been bought by a lovely reader and will soon be on its way to France! The link above now takes you to the store’s main page.
For you
A few months ago I made two pendants with smaller parts of the dried elderflower umbels. They turned out really nice, so I decided to make more.
I also decided to give them away instead of listing them on Etsy. So, if you would like one, let me know in the comments below, message me or hit reply (if you are reading this in email): the five pendants will go to the first five people to do so.
For me and for the birds
There were two other pieces in the kiln I was particularly happy with and these are pieces that I made just for me. For me, for us, for the house or for the garden. That doesn’t happen often, usually we get the fails, the pieces that don’t quite make the cut, the seconds, the wonky ones… you get the picture. Not this time.
The first was a bird-feeder — I used Mayco Elements glazes and they worked beautifully.3
I made three more (also for the garden) that will go in the next firing. They are different and now I regret not making them all like this one because of the texture — the other ones are smooth and I don’t think the glaze will work as well. We’ll see.
The other piece is the small mother and child sculpture you may have noticed at the beginning of this post. I made it during a workshop, along with Ola, my first ever workshop participant who is becoming a friend. She was pregnant with her second baby and wanted to make a sculpture. She came to the studio in February and we made mother and child sculptures together. It was… therapeutic.
My daughter turned 12 in February and she is growing up very fast (does anybody ever feel that their kids grow up too slowly?!?). When I was making this little figurine, I was thinking of the first years, of the time when I was her everything, when we were so close there was no distance between us, of how motherhood is so much about learning to let go. As I look at my daughter now, I both panic and am relieved she is moving away from me. Where there was no distance before there is now a space, and this space is slowly but surely increasing. This is as shocking as it is welcomed. I grieve and I rejoice. So, I suppose this figurine is my way of celebrating those baby- and childhood times, those times of closeness, where we were as one, and of acknowledging that those times are over, and that we were always two.
This sculpture, my recent solo-escapade to the seaside and the book I just finished reading (see below) are all gifts that came together to mark this moment, that feels so much like a passage, the beginning of something new.
Other gifts
As I mentioned above, at the start of this post, I will from now on include a list of things I enjoyed during the past month. I guess you could call this a fixed feature of my newsletter going forward.
On Substack:
Tamsin Haggis’ Looking for art in all the wrong places, in which she ponders the use of the word “art”; how we define it and how we can gain from seeing it also in everyday objects rather than only applying it to what we see in galleries, or to what comes from the hands of “known artists”, or, at least, from not elevating it over what we might call “craft”. As someone commented on her post “there is art in cRAfT”. Very interesting read and not just because my platter is featured!
Ben Wakeman’s serialised novel Daedalia. It’s not too late to start reading this fascinating story about an artist who creates beautifully intricate and rather mysterious paintings in which one can both lose oneself and find what was once lost.
Advice for Ancestors. Jason Anthony writes the Substack Field Guide to the Anthropocene and all his posts are incredible to read — not always good news but never lacking in hope and full full of resources and further reading. It was thanks to him that I discovered Robert Macfarlane, for example, and now his book Is a River Alive? is on my (ever growing) To Read pile.
Ju Blencowe — a new discovery, introduced by Emily Charlotte Powell in her latest Because Creativity post.
This post by The Enthusiast by Brad Montague, For Those Who Zag. I think I zag. What about you?
Not on Substack:
This article in Orion magazine
The messy and grungy art of Jenny Grant
My Wild and Sleepless Nights by Clover Stroud (she is also on Substack though I have not read her here) is the book I just finished. I wish I had read this book when I was pregnant or at least during my first few years of being a new mother. Turns out the author and I are roughly the same age and must have been pregnant around the same time (her with her fifth, me with my first!). Also, completely unrelated but fun fact, her dog is called Pablo, which is the name of the dog we were going to adopt, but in the end we brought home his brother, Ivo. Anyway… The book came out a few years later (2020) and I am only reading it now, yet another 6 years later… Still, better late than never, as they say. I relate to so much in this book, it was a relief to read it and to realise that I am not alone, and that no, I am not a bad mother just because I feel the messiness, the pain and the loneliness of motherhood as well as the love, awe and closeness and all the other good stuff. It’s all part of the package. She also articulates much better than I could ever the duality I write about above, this feeling of elation and sorrow, shock and relief, at the realisation that your child, as she puts it, “won’t be yours anymore”.
And that’s it from me for now. At the time of posting, I have actually just finished a second glaze firing, but this post is long enough as it is, so I will leave the new pieces for next time (though I may share some pics on Notes).
If any of what I wrote resonated with you, please share your thoughts in the comments (or reply on email) if you feel like — that’s how we connect, that’s how we grow.
And of course, remember to let me know if you would like one of the pendants mailed to you!
As always, thank you so much for reading, and I will see you next time.
Sara
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I am in the process of gathering more interviews; this series will resume when I have enough to make up “Season 2” of Interview with a potter.
The last two live in different sections of my Substack and you can opt-out of receiving them if you prefer, while still receiving the main post and the Interview with a potter series. In order to opt-out though, you do need an account with Substack — not pushing, just informing.
I am — unfortunately ;) — in no way sponsored by Mayco. I am however enjoying using these glazes and will share the results of the test tiles made with them in a future post.
It is always good to make something for yourself, and the birds!
I absolutely love Clover Stroud's writing - I can't think of anyone else who writes about "the way life feels" in quite the same deeply thoughtful and frank way she does.
I haven't read 'My Wild and Sleepless Nights' (it's literally in the pile, maybe this is a sign...) but 'The Wild Other' and 'The Giant on the Skyline' both still live in my head - the latter possibly because Clover's landscape is my landscape too, and I have never read anything about a deep connection to it, or any landscape, quite like that book.
I always enjoy reading you and like this new direction! Who cares about growing, it's a self-flagellating nonsense, even when you do need to make a living. When your heart and soul are the product you can't force it, as you say...