I’m afraid I haven’t done a blog post for four months. This does not mean that I am not potting – if anything, it means I am very much potting, and this has rather pushed things like ‘website updating’ to the bottom of my list.
If I’m totally honest, while I feel a website is important enough to spend money each month on having one, because it is so much easier sending out updates via Instagram, I have a habit of defaulting to that option. So apologies to all those who don’t use ‘Insta’. I see you, I know you exist. It’s just updating here involves multiple login steps, usually means encountering some baffling warning from WordPress that I don’t understand, and is incredibly labour intensive when it comes to uploading photos. This is not your fault, dear reader, but it is very much mine, due to my lack of willingness to engage with WordPress properly. Something for me to work on! I need to remind myself that the more often I do it, the easier it gets…
My feeble excuses over for failure to blog, what are the plans for 2025? Well, a little over six weeks in I have *finally* written down my goals for 2025. This list includes big ideas like ‘develop my homeware range’ and practical things like ‘set up a lightbox’. The latter is key to a lot of other goals – if I can take better photos more easily, then I will then be able list more items on my own website, as well as making it easier for galleries to share my work. Also on the list are a couple of new techniques I want to learn, both to push my existing ranges, and allow me to respond more confidently (and quickly) to orders that need custom logos.
While avoiding the process of goal setting during the cold months of January, I’m delighted to report that I did manage to finish my first major commission for the lovely Woodside B&B, Keswick. They are now fully equipped with their own, custom-sized swimming mug, plus beakers for teaspoons and little dishes for teabags for use by their guests at breakfast. I’m so grateful they were prepared to trust me with this order, and patiently wait for the Christmas rush to be over. I also massively enjoyed the process of adding lettering. I treated myself to some super-nice lettering stamps for the job, so I feel there may yet be more lettering to come in my future, because the novelty of impressing crisp, clean letters into clay has not yet worn off. (I can’t recommend the Relyef stamps highly enough – pricy, but lovely to use and made from biodegradable plastic.)
January and February have also been a good time to get stock ready for the galleries I supply (nearly there!) and start work on some new ideas that have been bubbling way. I am back in the ‘glaze testing mines’, ploughing through the labourious process of developing glazes for my new white stoneware. I thought I was there last year, but not quite. I’m hoping that it’s just a case of working out *exactly* how much of two colouring oxides please me the most – and how thickly I need to apply them. I try and do a few tests each kiln firing, so it doesn’t get overwhelming. In the meantime, my ideas for using the glazes I haven’t yet developed are running away with me, so there’s a little collection of items growing, waiting for the moment I’m ready to commit to mixing larger amounts of glaze! Here’s hoping that is actually in 2025!!
Best wishes
Helen x