8 minute read
Confessions of a Novice
from Claycraft issue 60
by KELSEY Media
BLOG Confessions of a novice of a novice
For almost two years, I've seen my fellow local potters only via my computer screen, in a fortnightly Anglian Potters Zoom session. In the earliest days of lockdown, this was a great way to stay connected with the group. It was also the perfect opportunity for more experienced potters to share their knowledge with newer ones. People who wouldn't have known each other's names have formed friendships, and many of us have learned not just from our own questions but also from those asked by other members. But there's a
KEITH BRYMER JONES IN THE FLESH!
Delayed for a year due to Covid, a long-awaited Anglian Potters demonstration fi nally went ahead on January 16th
I was so pleased with the form, and the huge crystals (my fi rst ones not on test tiles), but it broke in the kiln. I took it along anyway, in the spirit of the Throw Down. Andy Wright's brilliant hand-built teapot featured a detachable drip
bucket. (Photo: Trudy Staines)
limit to the social possibilities of a video call. It's one big discussion, whereas if you had 20 people in a physical space, you'd end up with several smaller conversations. I haven't had any of those 'getting to know you' chats, other than asking new people, 'what's your name and where do you come from?'.
Before the pandemic, Anglian Potters regularly met in person, with a series of demonstration days in a village hall deep in the Norfolk countryside. Up to about 140 members would get together, with a real sense of community as people brought food to share in a lunchtime buffet. I'd been to sessions with Niek Hoogland, Corina Ciscato, Ashraf Hanna, and Brendan Hesmondhalgh. In early 2021, we were due to be joined by the inimitable Keith Brymer Jones, but that was transformed into a Zoom session, just like pretty much everything else at the time. It was great, but we were over the moon when Keith agreed he'd still make the trip to East Anglia in real life, albeit a whole year later. I don't suppose any of us quite believed it'd actually happen, but it did, and it was well worth the wait.
Keith and Marj arrived bright and early on the Sunday morning in a borrowed car after theirs had collapsed on the way. I was immediately jealous of Keith's enormous brown coat that looked like it was made out of a thousand teddy bears. He told us it'd originally been for Siobhan but was way too long for her. The Anglian Potters team sprang
Keith and Marj and a few of Keith's pots. (Photo: Robi Capogna Bateman) into action, laying out chairs a little further apart than usual and having sold fewer tickets in deference to Omicron. Keith and Marj mucked in, helping set up the demonstration space and a table of Keith's pots available to buy. As I arranged the camera for filming, I overheard Keith ask for warm water for his throwing bucket, saying he always throws with warm water. I do, too, even in the summer, and I felt a daft flush of pride that we had something clay-related in common. I know, I know, it's hardly a shared talent, but it's something!
I could listen all day
If you get the opportunity to hear Keith talk and watch him demonstrate, snap it up fast. He's a fascinating speaker with a unique story. He's also a bit of an enigma, isn't he, this highly-skilled potter who outsources his mugs to be slip-cast in China. But that's an over-simplification. For a newish potter like me, who'd struggle to fulfil an order for 10 matching pieces, hearing Keith talk about single-handedly throwing 16,000 pieces back in the day – and I'm not exaggerating – really made me stop and think. I'd heard him tell this part of the story before, but I heard it from a slightly different perspective this time. The first time, the part that struck me was how anybody could feel confident to accept an order for tens of thousands of thrown pots, knowing they'd be able to achieve that in a reasonable time-frame. This time, it was the next part that sank in. If you're getting orders for tens of thousands of pieces from an international company that wants many, many more, what are you going to do? Turn them down? Employ lots of potters to throw thousands each? I suddenly saw that the only sensible option was to shift to a process that would work for mass production. Keith himself says he wishes this were possible in the UK, and still hopes to open a facility in Stoke to fulfil his UK orders.
For the love of clay
I also got the sense, as Keith talked and threw and trimmed, making us laugh with the occasional "it's in the book, Marj, in the book", that while
Events organiser Trudy Staines grabs a photo with the man himself.
Keith tests a lovely teapot made by my first teacher, Libbi
Hutchence. (Photo: Trudy Staines) this might have been the sensible business decision, his heart is still where the clay is. He showed photos of the family-owned factory in China where he knows the people by name, and grinned as he talked about getting his hands dirty with them on the factory floor. He's clearly fascinated by the process and the material. He said that the porcelain they use there, dug from the ground just outside the factory gates, is strange stuff. All the pieces made in the factory are raw
glazed, meaning there's no bisque firing. Anyone who's ever tried raw glazing will be familiar with what you might call the 'soggy biscuit effect'. When unfired, bone dry clay is dipped into a glaze, it soaks it up like tea into a Hobnob. And, just like a Hobnob, if you hold it in there too long, mushy bits drop off. But that isn't a problem with this stuff, he said; they just dip it in and out quickly, and it's fine. I asked him during the lunch break how they even hold an unfired mug with glazing tongs. Surely it'd break. He explained that the workers use their fingers rather than tongs, holding each mug gently at the rim and the base. It's such a thin coating of glaze, and the clay body itself fluxes so much when fired so high (higher even than cone 10, I think I recall) that there are no fingermarks left after firing.
Teapots, teapots everywhere, but not a drop to drink
One of the highlights for me was the table of amazing teapots that Anglian Potters members had brought in for Keith's teapot challenge. There was an impressive array, including both hand-built and thrown, from newer potters and the more experienced. I spotted Keith taking them all in during the lunch break, surrounded by a little crowd of those who'd realised what was happening. Somebody had found a jug of water, and, one by one, Keith was testing how well they poured. I'd used gold lustre to write 'pouring's overrated' on the one I showed you last month because it needed to be tipped so far over that water tended to leak out of the lid. It was a valuable teapot-making lesson – if only I hadn't had to learn it the hard way, as ever.
Phyl Lewry took third place. (Photo: Trudy Staines)
Rolling clay with Keith
Another memorable moment was watching the spoof Adele video that Keith made back in 2013. Search for 'Rolling clay with Keith' on YouTube. Keith himself apologised for the quality of his singing, and he even seemed quite relieved when technology prevented it from playing. "You could do it live!" someone in the audience called out, but to no avail. In the end, the video played, but the audio constantly cut in and out. I hadn't previously realised that this video was directly responsible for Keith's emergence as a judge on the Throw Down. While selling the Bake Off in America, a Love Productions' head honcho' had a meeting with an American businesswoman that Keith had been negotiating with, who told him she'd been working with this "cross-dressing nutter potter". Keith made the pottery audience laugh, joking that he's not really a crossdresser, "that's Grayson's domain". Anyway, the Love Productions guy watched the video from his hotel room and called Keith to see if he wanted to be a judge. Isn't it funny how one thing somehow leads to another!
Tears amid the laughter
Recently, every pot I make seems to teach me a new lesson and shows me how much I have left to learn. Watching and listening to Keith, I see the benefit of the hands-on hours he's put into clay over the years. It's remarkable. And, yes, in case you're wondering, he was moved to tears, on multiple occasions. Well, it wouldn't have been Keith otherwise, now would it!
Keith's book, 'Boy in a China Shop: Life, Clay and Everything' will have been released by the time you read this. Available from all good book shops
