Rating 6 pieces of my questionable pottery

Plus: Oh god, do I have to fancy Macron now?

A sad day approaches fast in my home - one where the baby begins to crawl and my pottery, of which there is a lot, will have to be moved off the floor, low shelves, bar cart, wobbly cabinets where it has sat happily for some years and probably shoved in the loft.

Which, arguably, is what some of it deserves. I’ve been taking pottery classes for about a decade now and so, naturally, you’d expect me to be the next Grayson Perry or Lucy Rie. What you wouldn’t expect is that I’m still producing wonky, lumpy clayforms with a high crack-rate. Or that my glazing is still on par with that of a toddler learning to colour inside the lines. Pottery is an unpredictable hobby at best - a lot can go unexpectedly wrong in the kiln - but, really? This?

Don’t get me wrong, I love it. That I went back to my evening class just a few weeks after giving birth showed me how deeply I prioritise getting my hands into a slab of stoneware. It’s the one truly creative thing I do and it’s also the thing that’s taught me to let go of perfectionism - make, model, mess up, laugh and then try something else. It’s pure liberation. It’s also why I handbuild only - I tried to master that bloody wheel for two years and, after bringing home yet another small, heavy-bottomed bowl useful only for the cat’s water, I quit. Which is how the below came into being.

I’m not saying they’re all rubbish. I’m pretty pleased with one or two. But, it’s more than that - these are the familiar friends that have been dotted around our house and are part of what makes it home. I’d like to tell you that I’ll swaddle each one in bubble wrap and whisper that I’ll see it again soon, before nestling them carefully into a box. But, probably, I’ll shove them all in a hessian bag, hope they don’t chip and toss them into the eaves until some unknown point in the future - or when the next family moves in and wonders why someone left all their child’s school artwork behind.

Here goes.

Number one

Don’t laugh. No, stop. This was the one of the first things I ever made and my husband still can’t get over it. Look, I understand - it’s a total Frakenpot. Like someone mashed together a pen pot, with some Art Deco embellishments and then spat toothpaste all over it.

Here’s another angle for you.

I’ve tried to throw it away more than once, but been stopped because it’s too good for a laugh. Into the attic you go.

Number two

Ok, I really love this total babe and I’m pretty sure you can’t tell she was the product of my lockdown brain in early 2020, right? Actually, I think that she was inspired by a pot I saw in the British Museum’s Troy exhibition around that time - breasts, wings, a monobrow? My kind of gal. She’s been sitting in the fireplace since Covid and I love looking at her. But she also wobbles like a weeble, because I didn’t flatter the base properly, so is probably the least baby-proof of the lot despite looking a bit like the Fisherprice yellow teapot.

Number three

Another epic win. A candlestick that not only broke twice in the making and had to be rebuilt (“So you decided not to make the base hollow after all and it cracked because it’s too heavy?” - my tutor), but even in its final iteration doesn’t hold taper candles very well because I was too lazy to measure the holes (“I’ll scrape some wax off with a knife, it’ll be fine”). The arms also lean dangerously outwards - like a wildly gesticulating Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast - so you’re always in danger of catching your sleeve in a flame.

Infant safety rating 0/10.

Number four

This is basically a score settling entry. OK, so I said to all my wedding guests that they could take home one of the many, many, many vases I’d made to hold our flowers at the reception venue (pub). But did I expect you all to take the powder blue ones and leave me with the brown variants? Hope you’re all enjoying them. Might let the baby break these on second thoughts.

Number five

This is total smuggery, truth be told. I saw a pot quite similar to this in a very chichi interiors shop somewhere by the sea, rushed over to the shelf to look at the price - “I must have it!” - only to find that it was £375. Of course, I understand that it was probably made by a very talented artisan who absolutely deserves to be paid fairly for their work and that I’m a total charlatan by attempting to make my own version. But I really like it and it cost me about £15. Also the baby loves running his fat little hand over the rough surface, so away she goes.

Number six

The noise I make most right now is probably “quack, quack, QUACK” at bathtime, or frankly anytime it will make the little lad laugh. So this candle holder is a firm favourite for small fingers. I love it, because the glass in the base belonged the the mother of a friend in my pottery class, who worked with stained glass. My pal very kindly let me have some for this little pond (to cover a crack, naturally) which I found generous and touching - I’m reminded of it every time I light a wobbly candle in it.

Thanks for indulging that. Somehow, in August, it didn't feel like the week for a feminist rant - even if I do have thoughts on Travis Kelce’s man tantrum. And I can only apologise that I haven’t even shown you the giant round vase with too-tiny legs, big green bowl with a huge crack through the middle or the orange plate on which I had to disguise some splodging with cack-handed gold stars. Next time, eh?

Picture of the week

Oh god, is this OK? Politicians on holiday aren’t usually the stuff to make you go ‘oh, actually…’ but Macron on his weird electric surfboard hydrofoil, in the south of France, might just have broken the mould. It certainly makes ‘shag, marry, avoid’ with the current political leaders a bit easier. Although thank you to Voici, the French gossip magazine that published the photos, for writing the headline ‘But what a handsome grandpa’. That helps to take the edge off. Much obliged.

Read

Venus William’s tennis comeback aged 45 (by Afua Hirsch)

‘When a person loses confidence, they dress to disappear’ - this by Sara Pascoe in The Times really resonated

I was completely dehumanised by my father (hard reading, but an incredible story)

See you next week! CC