If you have nipped over here after reading the latest Clay Craft magazine then Doug’s Diary will be here at the end of each month.
You can subscribe to it by clicking the link in the right hand column here if you are on a computer, or scroll right down on a phone.
We can’t believe it is our eighth online exhibition. Eight times we have put together a catalogue of new work for you to see and possibly buy from. When we tried it the first time, we had absolutely no idea how it would be received, but you have loved it. Thank you. Every time we have put our hard work out into this weird but wonderful world of the internet, it has been received with gusto. We have had so many lovely emails from people enjoying what we have done, enjoying reading the catalogues and seeing what we have been up to, and lots of orders too which is the icing on the cake. So thank you. To each and every one of you that has supported us by reading, commenting, sharing posts or buying our pots, a huge and very heartfelt thank you.
Our newest online exhibition catalogue is available now on the home page of our website, until November 10th, or here from then on.
Friday October 27th at 7pm GMT will see our eighth online exhibition go live here on our website. The catalogue will be available on the homepage of this website. We hope that you enjoy the new pieces that we have put together this year.
We are delighted to be taking part in Spring Fling again this year. This is Dumfries and Galloway’s wonderful open studio event that happens each year at the end of May. This year it will be over the weekend of Saturday 27th to Sunday 29th May, the bank holiday weekend in parts of the UK.
There are 100 studios taking part this year, the largest to date. The beautiful brochure is available now, if you are a Spring Fling Friend then you will receive your copy in the post. It’s not too late to become a Friend, you can sign up here, and many of the studios offer a discount to Friends of Spring Fling during the event. If you are in the region there are brochures in many venues across Dumfries and Gallloway where you can collect a copy, or indeed it is available to order for a small charge from here.
On the website you can learn about all the artists and makers taking part in Spring Fling 2023. You will get a glimpse of their working methods and their working spaces, as well as a taste of their finished work. You will also find details of the studio locations for the Spring Fling weekend, including access information and exactly how to find them. Use the map to explore the region and help plan your trip – and with the search functions you can select areas, artistic disciplines – or individual artists.
We will be open for the three days of the event and of course invite you to visit and see where we are, what we do and a little about how we do it. Come and visit our beautiful region and meet some of our many and brilliant craftspeople and artists.
We have been making and making and worrying and making while we got together a new and rather large selection of work for our exhibition at The Leach Pottery in St. Ives, Cornwall. We have worked so very hard that we have sent over 130 new pieces down to Cornwall for the exhibition, ‘An Ongoing Devotion’, which opens this Friday, February 24th with a private view from 4pm until 6pm. We are, unfortunately, unable to get there to the opening but we will be present via the magic of the internet through Zoom. There will be more details about that available from The Leach Pottery this week.
The exhibition will then run from Saturday 25th February through till 30th April.
Our seventh online exhibition opens at 7pm GMT on Friday 11th November. You’ll be able to find the catalogue on the home page of this website and all the pieces in the shop page.
We do hope you enjoy the new work.
What a month, the passing of Her Majesty the Queen, a new Prime Minister, and for us, a second dose of Covid. It was a sad day when the Queen died. I, like so many, had a sense that she was immortal as she’s been here longer than most of us have. I think for some of us who have known grief in recent times, it unlocked feelings that we have tried to suppress. It was about more than just the Queen passing, and it touched us deeply.
Yesterday we took the road over to Edinburgh for the evening, to the opening of a new exhibition, Scratching the Surface, at The Scottish Gallery on Dundas Street. The Scottish Gallery is renown for it’s exhibitions of both contemporary and historical fine and applied arts. If you have a look at the website and the pages about the exhibition you can read about the other exhibitors and watch a number of small films about the works and of course browse the pieces themselves. There is a beautiful catalogue available from the gallery for the exhibition.
There was a lovely review of the exhibition in The Scotsman newspaper’s Arts Review earlier this week and it singled out Hannah for praise. I quote, ‘But perhaps the star in this second part is Hannah McAndrew’s slipware. She gives real authenticity to her revival of this ancient style of pottery decoration.’
The exhibition is on until October 29th, opening details are on the Scottish Gallery website.
Currently we are building up a body of work for our 6th online exhibition which goes live in a couple of weeks. We have been working hard to get pots to various places that need them and to get pieces together for this and we are almost there. The photographer is booked, the pots are mainly not still lumps of clay though there are a few exceptions. We are trying not to work ourselves into the ground this year, we’re not as young as we were, but it’s hard when you absolutely want to give something your all. We are always looking at the pots that we making and working out how they can better, what the next batch will have that this doesn’t. It’s an important thing to do for us, we don’t want to be repeating things exactly the same for ever. We may, and indeed often do, revisit forms or decorative patterns but they are always worked with the knowledge of the last time, a fluency perhaps that has evolved through the making or the profile of the piece altered slightly to give more grace or more fullness of belly. They are never exactly the same as the last time and the intuitive learning can only come by moving clay through your fingers time and time and time again.
The exhibition, Fitch and McAndrew Online VI will go live on our website at 7pm GMT on Friday 12th November. We are happy to ship worldwide and can get quotes together for you if you are interested. The pots will be put together in an online catalogue along with images of the workshop, the pots in process and hopefully small films of the pieces too. All the pots will then be listed in our online shop here on the website.
When I write it like that it seems so straightforward, fingers crossed it will all happen smoothly with no technical hitches.
We are very honoured to have been asked to be a part of what looks like it will be a beautiful exhibition at Gallery 1673 in Stroud. This is an exhibition of contemporary earthenware slipware by ten of Britain’s leading potters:
The exhibition opens on Saturday October 2nd at 10am in the gallery and online on Monday 4th at 7pm. It is open until the 17th October
