“YOU HAVE TO LIVE WITH THE THREAT OF FAILURE ALL THE TIME!”
I am going to talk about glazing the pots at a later stage as there is much to talk about regarding mixing and applying glazes. Suffice it to say that glazes were a key ingredient to the individuality, invention and exploration that epitomises the studio pottery at Greendene.
It came to the day of the firing in the big brick kiln out the back behind the studio. A few days before we had collected fire wood and stacked it up by the kiln. There was always plenty of logs due to the need to cut back the woodland areas that were threatening to invade the house and garden. I had hacked down and sawn Ash, Beech and Elderberry that had that strange musty earth scent. This was part of my continuing gardening duties.
The kiln had been stacked and the door bricked up with one brick lose to enable viewing inside the kiln to check the temperature.
Behind the Studio
We started with a rather modest little fire in the fire box and gradually built it up. After several hours the pile of logs had slowly gone down and the temperature built up to a warm satisfying glow.
Once a certain temperature was reached, judgements were made by discussion between Mike and Denis, deciding on when the blower engine should be started. It was an old petrol fuelled engine and had to be cranked up to get started. Michael did the pulling and the engine huffed and puffed spluttered and went out. He tried again and once again the engine started into life and then died. Worried faces: again he pulled on the rope and finally with grunt and a shiver the thing began to fire.
Behind the kiln was a couple of barrels up on a make shift sort of shelf and these were the oil barrels that I hadn’t really noticed before. We trekked over to the drive way and filled petrol cans full from the oil tank and barrowed them back to the kiln. We filled the barrels and jumped down to activate the blower.
Now came the crazily exciting moment as Michael turned the tap and the oil dripped down and was shot into the fire box by the blower. Woh! I jumped back in shock as the fire box roared and exploded into life red hot and angry. I stood mesmirised wondering if the delicate pots that were trapped inside would survive this baptism of fire? What expectation and anticipation is generated and I couldn’t wait to see what happened next.
Firebox – Pastel and charcoal Reaching temperature – the reduction
Well, I did go back and with what seemed an endless summer of struggle and the total faith and enthusiasm of my tutor I began to make progress.
I spent time watching Michael on his wheel turning out perfect mugs, jugs and various other decorative pieces. He could produce a whole set of six pots, a milk jug and sugar bowl to my one rather clumsy lumpy mug. Still it was progress and I began to enjoy it.
After letting your pot dry to leather hard, you then turned and trimmed your pot and carefully took off excess clay with a special wire tool that was hand made. like most of the things in the pottery, including the foot wheel that I was using.
Like most things in the pottery studio, I learnt the hard way. I was beginning to find out that every stage of the pot’s progress was fraught with danger and disaster. You could destroy you hard earned pot at every stage. I took off too much and the pot developed a hole, I didn’t centre the pot on the wheel sufficiently so it wobbled and one side was thinner than the other. It took me ages and meanwhile a whole kitchen set was materialising over the otherside of the studio magically by the master. I did feel at times feel I could strangle him and the clock ticked on.
These leather-hard items were then left to dry and stacked on shelves around the windows. Each time I came back I found my pots seemed to manage to change and become dumpier and clumsier everytime I looked? This seemed to be the case through every stage, I would make an item and think, thats not bad, nice shape, good size etc. only to find when I returned the next day it had mysteriously changed and looked totally inadequate.
This was the 60’s and what seems a million years ago. I was sitting in the back seat of my father’s car. Morose, is probably not the word, there may be a better one; I was 13 or 14 with issues. My grandmother, still, at that time called “Nan Nan” enjoyed trips out into the Surrey hills when she came to stay with us. It was a time before the oil crisis and the carbon foot print. I am not sure how my father, who worked long hours, new so many country roads. He seemed to have a perfect map or gyroscope in his head, a human Sat Nav!
Anyway, we were out and about on this fine Sunday afternoon. My eyes were fixed on the lane and overhanging trees, fascinated by the rope-like roots that embedded the chalk banks, washed by rain that had strewn knife like flints across the narrow road. My head nodded against the glass and with pangs of anxiety I thought of my return back to school in a few weeks time. I tried to concentrate on the winding view that reminded me so much of Graham Sutherland’s Pembrokeshire lane paintings.
We climbed a hill up towards the North Downs Way, the track that took the pilgrims on to Canterbury. Just as we turned a sharp bend my mother; I am sure it was my mother called out,
Stop!
Look, there’s a gypsy caravan. Sure enough, there it was and sitting next to it Buddha – like, sat an elderly gentleman with a lose check shirt and baggy trousers.
I hadn’t notice, but along side this guru, was a handmade trestle type table with what appeared to be strange pottery items. I didn’t know at the time, how this chance encounter would change the direction of my life.
So how can I describe this first meeting with this Chinese influenced studio pottery? They were unlike any crockery I had ever seen before. Cups and mugs of sombre natural colour, deep rich greens, shiny dark blacks with flecks of brown. Bowls of clear turquoise blues and creamy golds were set against blood red vibrant violet flecks on dishes and plates. They’re were tall odd shape objects that I later gathered were incense burners, robust looking teapots with bamboo handles, most fantastic. How crazy was this place, set in the very middle of a sedate orthodox county? Was it a time warp, someone replanting a chunk of ancient medieval orient into our post war consumer based society?
What also amazed me was that my father was also intrigued and began a long conversation with this slightly unkempt casual man who oozed a sort of magic energy and appeared to have a smoke of care and deep thought about him. To me, he appeared as a man living a dream, a true artist, like Monet or Rembrandt. He talked animatedly about his pots and his discovery of ancient glazes, Sang de Boeuf, the “blood of the ox”, Celadon and Tenmuko.
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The day after the great storm the telephone came back on so that at least we could make contact with the outside world. Mike’s dad came up the lane as far as he could get in the car and we trekked down clambering over the debris and managed to make contact and it was like tunnel builders meeting in the middle to wave and shake hands. He gave us some provisions and chatted awhile and then we made our way back up the lane to make tea and consider our next moves. At least we now had our dinners sorted for the next few days.
The electrics came on soon after and gradually things returned to normal and we began the task of felling and moving the old apple and hawthorn trees. Later that week we made a big bonfire and enjoyed the sparks shooting up into the night sky, smells and smoke of burning wood, the joys of living in the midst of nature.
I must have dozed off eventually as the next thing I heard was Mike shouting up the stairs. It was finally morning and thankfully the house still seemed to be in one piece. Mike said
“Take a look outside!”
Stepping outside, I gasped: where was the brick path which leads up to the house? We walked in wonderment down the hill climbing and dodging tree branches and broken stems and smashed garden pots. Everywhere, there were trees heeled over and up rooted. When we approached the lane, it was just completely lost under mountains of debris. We realised we were hemmed in and cut off by road to the outside world. We also discovered back at home that the telephone wasn’t working. We were isolated, no internet then, no emails or What App’s etc. It was a weird feeling.
So what did we do? We had breakfast and spent time deciding what, if anything we could do?
Revitalised, by eggs and bacon and several cups of tea we made our way down the drive with Mike carrying the chain saw and me with various saws croppers and axes. We started to cut away the fallen hawthorn and the old apple tree that had fallen across the drive and gradually cleared a passage for the cars. Greendene Lane was a different proposition and there was no way we could clear that! It was fallen branches as far as we could see and it would take us weeks to clear it. It was eerily silent, no cars, no walkers, no cyclists as we clambered over the mass of chaos; an Armageddon, a John Martin apocalypse!
Up above, in the Sheepleas a whole mass of beech trees were uprooted, their roots like spiders gently swaying in the calmer wind now. Later, I went up to the pine wood to see my ‘Siegfried’s forest’. This was where I had been painting, using the rich dark canopy as a theme for a painting of ‘Siegfried’s Forest’, based on Wagner’s Ring cycle. To my great despair and shock, the whole plantation was completely felled by the gale. None of them, apart from a few small ragged trunks near the edge of the area, were still standing. The trunks lay like broken pencils cut down and sprawling like massacred soldiers. It was a scene in a World War 1 film clip, a Paul Nash painting. My heart was broken and my eyes filled with tears, I had never experienced anything as powerful as that storm and was lost in mourning for my felled forest.
I was awoken one night by a loud rapid banging and crashing. Initially I tried to ignore it, rolled over and tucked the blankets over my head. After a few more minutes I realised I couldn’t really leave it and curiosity got the better of me and I wearily got up groping for the light. As I descended the stairs the noise seemed to get louder and it felt like I was at sea. Each time there was a crash I felt a great draft of wind as if the front door was open?
When I got down I saw what the noise was: it was the cat flap furiously rising and falling and each time it opened a blast of cold air blew in and a pile of autumn leaves were strewn along the hallway. I gingerly opened the front door and wished I hadn’t.
The scene, while hideously dark, was a wild animated hurricane of movement. The trees were at crazy angles bending almost to the ground and there was a strange groaning noise as if they were in torment. What light there was flickered and splintered between the heaving branches.
I forced the front door shut again and managed to wedge the cat flap shut and went to make a cup of tea as I was wide awake now. I don’t know how, but Michael seemed to be totally oblivious to the cacophony of noise and continued to sleep through it all!
For the first time since I moved in I felt quite scared and concerned about the proximity of the trees to the house. Each wave of the hurricane seemed to get more furious and I felt like a small rodent paralysed by fear and expecting any minute for the crash of and splinter of trees crashing down on our little house.
Having had tea and noticing the cats were nowhere to be seen. I plodded back up the stairs trying to not think too much about the situation. I lay down on the bed listening to the wild tossing and imagined this was like a tropical storm with the wind hitting the window and the whole shaking of the house. Maybe it would be lifted up and carried away like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz Would I ever see the sunrise?
Life at Greendene settled into a pattern. Weekdays were divided between teaching and pottery making. Weekends were generally quiet as Michael spent a lot of time with Betty. I had the place to myself and found the silence and the seclusion overwhelming at times, profound at others. I took long walks up into the beech woods or across the road and up into mountain wood, where in the old days Denis said there were charcoal burners.
Here I found a pine wood, tall pencil like conifers reaching for the sky. This was so different from the flora and fauna on our side of the valley. I could dream of wolves, Hansel and Gretel and old fairy tales telling of strange creatures appearing from behind trees. I had read Tolkien and imagined elves and goblins fighting amongst the needles and pine cones. Later, I discovered Arthur Rackham’s illustrations of Wagner’s ring cycle and was inspired to do some paintings based on these works. For now, though I just walked in a kind of dream and took in scents and eerie sounds of the woodpecker in the calming enclave of this deep rich dell.
In the pottery I started to get interested in building castles and ruins and it brought out my love of architecture, gothic edifices and Victorian mansions. I made some on the wheel and some I made by slab building and adding doors, porticos and mullion windows. It seemed a good idea to fit a light inside or use them for pot- pourri and incense, harking back to Denis’s incense burners many years before. While I enjoyed making these one off things they took a long time to make and occasionally bits would drop off in the firing. I couldn’t hope to recover all my costs when selling them.
Along with the pottery I started to get the hang of teaching and managed to organise my classes better and this helped to make the sessions less frightening for me although I have never quite got over the anxiety and stress of anticipation before a class began, but once they started, all the tension dissipated and I found the lessons were over before I knew it. All the thoughts and concern seemed to evaporate and I enjoyed the banter and the sometimes hilarious things that happened.
One student I can remember was a large heavy boned, thick set chap who was over 6 foot tall and towered over me. It was difficult to say how old he was, but he had seen a lot of life and must have been over 50. He used to arrive at the class in an Austin Mini driven by a very glamorous young and attractive blond lady. With great difficulty he unfolded his long legs and extracted himself from the confines of the tiny car with a lot of cursing and wheezing. This event I had spotted one morning as I walked to the art centre and I have never forgotten it.
In the class he always went into the farthest corner and set his easel up facing the wall. While I circulated around the group I could hear every now and then a great sigh emanating from the far corner. Sometimes a shout and a curse would burst forth, steam rising from above his easel as he wrestled with the canvas.
I would trundle over hesitantly to discuss his work and,
“I hate painting!” he roared,
“I don’t know why I come, every week, as every time I start with such optimism and enthusiasm, but half way through I find I‘ve taken the wrong course and all my efforts just evaporate into a grey soup”
I would try and encourage him and give him advice, but to no avail.
“I’m afraid, I’m finished with this lark, I shall go and take up something easier, geology or bread making, maybe even astrophysics, it would be far easier!”
With that desperate plea, he would pack his paints and with a heavy heart he would clear off back to his young love and his half finished work of art.
The next week of course he would be back wheezing and sighing in the corner again.
Like so many, his difficulty was with handling his emotions, but something drew him back and I loved him for it.
Winter morning at Greendene
On the other side of the room were two elderly ladies. One dark, the other grey, they always came together and always very early. They would leave the class half an hour before the end of the lesson? I discovered later, that one was married and in order to have time for a gin and it, they left early and went to the spinster’s house and continued to paint and have their tipple without the husband knowing.
The dark lady had a small bright apple green fiat car, which she parked right outside the institute. It was a narrow road and it often used to block the road for other road users, but she was oblivious to this. Sadly, when they painted the yellow lines they made it a double yellow instead of a single and she was horrified and distraught and decided that enough was enough and they never returned. I guess they continued painting and tippling back at the house without telling the husband!
Extract from Journal
February 3rd 1986
Walked in a daze up into Siegried’s forest, lines of trees drifting into the mist, everywhere damp and dark and silent. I think I may have fallen in love?
Autumn 1986
The death of Ralph Richardson an old style eccentric who talked about time and the theatre:
I paraphrase his comments: “
“A play once it starts is like a boulder at the top of the hill and once the curtain goes up the boulder begins to roll down the hill inevitably to the bottom”.(Like life)
“A good actor takes note of pauses, a pause is a great thing and to have confidence to stop during a play is a great thing ” . ( True in painting and music too)
Having discussed my decision to move out of the family home with Mike, he kindly agreed that I could come and lodge at Greendene. It seemed the best option and as no one was staying there at night it would be good for security reasons as well as a convenience for me.
The accommodation upstairs was pretty minimal and a lot to be desired with cobwebbed corners and the smell of dusty neglect. There was no heating in the rooms and a lot of junk to be moved. It was now spring and the cherry trees were wearing their wedding gowns. The dark stems black against shimmering ‘pinky-whites’ was breathtaking, it seemed an appropriate time to be moving in and I felt a thrill of of excitement at the prospect.
I chose the room looking out on the cherries and started to plan and paint the grey grimy walls that sloped sharply due to being up in the roof. It felt like being under canvas in a big tent. I bought a new carpet, a bed and a small chest of draws was found and dragged up the narrow stairs.
This reminds me of the time when in a frenzy of tidying, Betty and Michael, but chiefly Betty decided to clear the other rooms upstairs as well.
So in order to fit in a new computer, it was decided the old sofa bed had to go.
Now this was an ancient relic that had a complicated metal structure that could rival a Rolls Royce’s chassis. This rather sinister dark monstrosity was incredibly heavy with an iron frame that was made to last for millennia, but with typical optimism Betty declared,
“I’m sure you two can get it down the stairs”
Both of us looked at each other sceptically and shook our heads.
Nothing daunted, she goaded,
“Oh come on, think how much space you’ll have when it is gone” So reluctantly, with clouds of dust, debris and cobwebs we began to remove leather cushions and managed to take off the arms to help get it through the doorway. The bed was in the back room and we had to drag it through 3 doors and round a sharp bend before we approached the stairs. With a heaving, puffing and muttering we manoeuvred the dam thing vertically to negotiate the sharp bend half way down the stairs. Well, we got it inch by inch down the first few steps and then we had to face the left hand turn. We were bruised and scratched from metal protuberances and try as we might we couldn’t get round no matter which way we up ended the armoured tank.
Push, heave curses and swearing relieved the tension, but it did not budge. What were we to do?
To quote the phrase from those iconic pair, Laurel and Hardy,
“Another fine mess you got us into,” both looking at Betty, who suggested making a cup of tea.
After a slurp of tea sitting half way up the stairs, we finally decided that we would have to take it back up and try and take it apart and chuck it out of the window.
Back, arms and legs aching and a large amount of swearing, we heaved it back the way we had come, back to the room from wence it came. We had had enough by then and exhausted we fell down the stairs to the kitchen to be revived by another cup of tea. This heavy and malevolent construction one could say, was an example of great British engineering, built like a tank and made to last!
*
I finally settled into my new room and enjoyed my new freedom. Now I was living on site and had only to walk down the path to the studio to work. It was a real joy to open the front door to the sound of birds, the smell of fresh air and the occasional sight of pheasants and deer wandering and strutting through the garden. I could take a walk before breakfast and enjoy the misty morning light, the emergence of wild flowers through the seasons. I felt great and that I could really make pottery and paint heartfelt landscapes. I was in my element.
The other big thing that really started to change things was that, first of all my father got a job for a year in Java and was based in Jakarta. For that year I was involved in looking after my mum as my brother had moved away and was living in Dorking with his girl friend.
Both me and my mother went out to Java for a month and I found it absolutely fascinating, particularly nature and the cultural differences. Colour was king, I felt all at once, battered and bathed in kaladoscopic bright colours both in terms of the clothes and the natural world. There were butterflies as big as my fist, frogs, croaking and ducks proliferating. I was in a wonderland and it felt like I was slipping into a David Attenborough film.
The heat was terrific, I remember as I got off the plane and thinking I could feel the heat of the engines, but no that was just the normal daytime temperature. So pushing through the sweating crowds we started to look for my father. Well, I nearly fell over when I saw him!
He had turned native and was wearing the brightest of high key coloured shirts, with shorts and sandals, YES, sandals! This was my father, who in England would wear the most traditional of office wear. This was a crazy world and full of fascination, but I must continue, as I am digressing from the Greendene story, maybe I will return to my travels at a later time.
My fathers garden in Indonesia
I mention this episode because it was after he returned to England that I felt somewhat of and incumbrance in the house, I was surplus to requirement. My father was retiring and it seemed right that I should leave him and my mother to enjoy each others company again.
Extract from Journal:
April 12th 1981 – The Primroses, cowslips are just beginning, dandelions and daffodils in full swing. Eager activity of the sparrows, the first brood: Green, just a sprinkling on the trees, especially the hawthorn. Now travelling off to a distant land without a Spring.
Up until 1982 I was travelling to Greendene to work on my motorbike through all sorts of weather. Whatever nature could throw at me I soldiered on battling the elements to get to the pottery. In summer the biking was an absolute joy. As I zoomed up the verdant lanes, I could smell the soft scents of wild flowers and the evocative aroma of damp clumped roots hanging on to the chalk banks. The temperature would vary and as I speeded on I would notice a sudden coolness as I hit deep shadow and then hit with a warm glow as came out into the sunshine again.
In complete contrast however the winter could be a wild unpredictable beast and a bully. Wind often threatening me to drive me into the frosted banks. The worst was the freezing of the hands, which while numbed and fossilised by the cold on the bike, would have to be prised apart when I got to Greendene. Then they would start to defrost and wow, what a pain! Nothing would ease the pain, I would wildly shake them, wave my hands around like a lunatic, frantically trying to escape from my hands altogether. Cursing and swearing as I stamped and shimmied, before slowly they began to thaw. It took up to half an hour or more sometimes before I could function as a human being again!
I decided that I had to have a car with a heater in it. I didn’t mind what sort of car as long as it had a roof and got me about ok. I had little money, but I scraped together some cash and begged, borrowed from friends and family. Preferably I wanted a car with a good size boot to carry pots and paintings, but I couldn’t really afford an estate or a van.
Mike suggested I look for a Morris Traveller, the ones with the wooden frame, a kind of old fashioned shooting break, “half timbered”. It sounded a good plan. So I started looking around. They had stopped making them some years previously, so it had to be some years old and it took awhile to find.
Up the Lane
Finally, I located one nearby and we set off to take a look. When I saw it, I wasn’t that enamoured of it, it was a strange sort of greeny khaki colour and had an Irish number plate. We both looked over it and it seemed in relatively good order, so I bought it and rather like an old pair of gloves or a tatty jumper I soon got to love it. As I say, I did come to love it, but boy it had a lot of problems which I gradually discovered over time. Nevertheless, I fell in love with its quirky Englishness, despite it coming from Ireland. Loved it’s throaty choky sound as I changed gear. The best thing of all was it had a heater and it protected me from the elements. So life at the old pottery moved on.
Extract from my Journal:
May 18th 1983 Went up to find the early purple orchid and counted seven flowering and found one in a new place near to the old caravan.
Bluebells about at their peak despite its being such a cold spring and very wet; I hope this dark bleak weather changes soon.
August 5thIt’s been a welter of wild time, soft journeys through cold clay, winding up the lazy lane to see on dizzy heights where buzzards and the skylarks rise in spiral spheres. Now is the time for running through the overgrowth in a livid living light as thunder strikes and time stops.
28th Jan (On returning from a trip to the peak district to see the stone circle of Arbor Low)
I must mention enrolment evenings for the classes, as it is very different now when we all communicate so much via the internet and everyone appears to be too busy to meet in the flesh so to speak.
Enrolment evening was where school desks were set up in the main hall of the school. Each tutor enrolled his own students; we were each allocated a desk with forms and anything you had by way of promotion material.
The Centre manager strutted rather pompously around to check if we were all ready and with a great gesture, swept open the doors and with a rush the people spilled ‘willy-nilly’ out into the hall to find there specialist subject and get first in the queue. I don’t know why, but I have a picture in my head of Mr Bean and his hesitant peering gait charging through the crowd as in the episode of him at the January sales.
Lines of eager faces waited patiently for the popular courses while other less popular subjects, the tutors sat morosely, twiddling their thumbs idly.
Pottery was universally popular and Mike was kept busy all evening signing up for his classes. In one way, I was hoping no one would sign up for painting, but on the other hand it would be very humiliating not having enough to start the class, plus I needed the money.
Teapot designs
Again, naively I had assumed a whole lot about my students, they would be very knowledgeable and want to delve into discussions on the relative importance of Dada in the post Pop Art era, or how Leonardo Da Vinci managed to transfer his cartoons to the plaster walls of a church or chapel. Most however, asked very, what I thought were mundane questions on what materials they needed, what colour is the sea and could they paint their pet dog. They knew nothing about grades of pencil, what was the difference between watercolour and gouache and crucially, what to bring to the first class? I tried to answer their questions and mentally had to turn somersaults to re-plan the whole of the first terms work. None of these rather hesitant unsure students I was enrolling new much at all about paint and materials to work with and in some cases had rather grandiose ideas of painting mountains, lakes and romantic scenes like Constable or Turner in their first term! I would have to bring down their expectations and focus on simpler colour exercises and help them with drawing objects. How was I to make these basic techniques exciting and challenging without them feeling they were back at school again? I had been fully prepared for teaching at A level or above, but this was wholly out of the question and I would have to try developing a step by step approach that was totally alien to my experience of art school teaching. It took me awhile and I do feel sorry for those first intrepid students who I took under my wing. I am not sure how much they could have learnt or whether they ever continued to develop their skills, I am afraid I have my doubts. One thing that I did discover about myself was that I began to really appreciate what I knew and had experienced and this gave me confidence and I learned to be more considerate of others, less dwelling on my own inadequacies. I still have a great passion for teaching and the passing on of knowledge; finding ways to encourage and challenge learners to break out and not be afraid of taking on new ideas, braving the unusual, encouraging personal development is a very satisfying and life affirming thing.
Bracken emerging in Spring
Extracts from Journal
March 11th 1980
The snowdrops are in their full glory now and primroses are on the move. Soon it will be daffodil time: it’s the yellow season
March 12th
It seems I need to be removed or away from a subject in order to paint it, only then does it have meaning for me
April 12th
Primroses, cowslips now in flower, there are dandelions and daffodils dotted through the garden under the trees also there is the eager activity of sparrows and their new broods while bright green just showing on the beeches, hawthorn’s ready to emerge.
Old Office Chair by the Pottery
Next blog “The Lodger” (My experiences of coming to live at Greendene)
It was getting colder now and as we were up on the North Downs near the Pilgrims Way, so it was a degree or two colder than down in the valley. I could feel it as I motorcycled up the lane, the air getting icier as I climbed the last half mile up to the turning into the driveway. I remember breaking the ice in the water buckets and my steaming hands as I kneaded the clay. In fact sometimes there were ice particles in the clay so we had to warm it up before we could use it. Our only heating in the studio was two paraffin stoves, except when the electric kiln was on when we then, basked in the luxurious warmth, like bugs in rugs.
I continued to enjoy the wild life, the deer leaping in the clearings, the rabbits carousing, gold finches bending the teasels to find the seeds. Later we saw the fieldfares and the redwings our winter visitors out in the fields eating the fallen apples. We both took walks up into the sheep leas, the bare branches of the beeches, was like walking through vast cathedral arches. The grey green trunks with knarled faces peered at us as we strolled and I loved the frosted hogweed, like bright delicate diamonds in the sparkling sunshine.
It was a great time and I loved the peace and quiet of it, but it was a precarious living and my finances were at rock bottom. Both Denis and Mike had been teaching in local adult education centres. Denis taught at Esher Green, a place I got to know well much later on and Mike taught up the road at the Howard of Effingham School in the evenings. Mike one day suggested I do some teaching myself and the thought scared me to death! Me, who hated crowds and avoided parties etc, I was not an extrovert and not nearly self confident enough to actually go and teach other people. I certainly didn’t feel confident to teach pottery anyhow, as my experience was too limited and although I knew a lot about painting, naively, I supposed, there was not much I could teach others. It was such a personal discipline, what would I teach them? I had enthusiastically engaged with various art movements and history, but it seemed rather random and idiosyncratic. Surely, those whom I would teach, would know a lot more than me?
The Sheepleas
Anyway, Mike was persistent and had mentioned it to the school and that there was a vacancy for an art teacher on the same evening as Mike worked there. It felt like fate and I felt I had no choice, but to take the bull by the horns and give it a try.
An interview was planned and I sorted out a portfolio of work that I felt would give a clear idea of my ideas and what I could teach. I spent hours considering what subjects, techniques and methods that the students could tackle, I then felt even more inadequate, I had no experience or training in education, but Mike assured me I would be fine.
The evening came and I set off loaded with all my work lashed to the back of my bike and wobbled off down the lane and nervously drove through the gates of the school to await my fate.
I was well prepared to argue my case and show my credentials, my exams and my diploma in Art and Design. I was summoned into the centre manager’s office and was told to sit down.
“You are Michael Buckland’s friend aren’t you?”
I said, “Yes”
He said, “Are you qualified?”
Yes, I said I went to art school and have my diploma.”
“Can you start after Christmas?”
I answered hesitatingly, “Yes”
“Ok, that’s fine” he said offhandedly, “See you at the enrolments night.”
That was the extent of my interview, I tried to get my folder out, but he said
“It’s no good showing me any work; I have no knowledge of art!”
He didn’t ask about my teaching experience, my understanding of health and safety rules or what to expect.
I asked him if I could see the room I was to use and he reluctantly said,
“I am not supposed to leave my office really, but I suppose I better show you what the room is like.”
After a brief visit to the room and checking on equipment, which was extremely limited, we went back down stairs and that was that.
I thanked him, gathered up my things and walked out somewhat dazed, I was now a bonafide part time teacher!
When I think of how things have changed now for part time tutors, it astonishes me how easily it was to get a job teaching. I still dread to think, what the students thought of this tentative rather frightened young man who was to teach them the rudiments of painting. I can’t remember a thing about that term; my mind is a complete blank. I could quite easily have taught them anything including standing on their heads or making funny noises with a comb and a sheet of paper, for all the centre manager knew. As long as no one complained and he could sit in his warm office, he was happy.
In the weeks after Denis die, we started in earnest to try and make a go of the pottery, his legacy. In the weeks before his death things had slowed up, but I had continued to try and build up speed and skill on the wheel and began various experiments with design on plates, storage jars and rather quirky teapots.
It was Saturday and bleary eyed I staggered down the stairs, half asleep and unfocused. I headed for the kitchen and grabbed a quick slice of toast. Putting on triple layers of clothes including vest, shirt, jumper, thick leather style jacket and gloves I stepped out in to the cold.
For some months previously I had saved up enough to scrape together the money to buy a small motorbike, much against my mother’s will. It was great though now, as I could ride to Greendene independently and not have to take the “the forever bus” to Bookham and nab a lift with Mike. Today, though I had agreed to meet him in Dorking and to set up the pottery stall in Arthurs Yard where there was a craft market every Saturday.
It was a bright crystal clear morning; there were silver coated trees and grass with spikes of frost that caught the light of the low sun as I kicked the Honda in to life. It was going to be a cold ride down the by-pass, but I was optimistic that we would sell some pots, including mine with a bit of luck.
I well remember as I raced down the road how the iconic hump of Box Hill appeared round the corner. Dappled woolly white clouds speckled the horizon a scene like one of those Japanese prints of Mount Fuji. The trees glowed soft gold and were on the turn as I carved my way passed Westhumble and the car park that was always full of bikers in the summer, but was now vacant, empty of cars.
I weaved my way round the back streets of Dorking and parked behind the old coaching inn that was Arthur’s yard. Mike was already there with the loaded Morris traveller and carrying the trays of wrapped items ready to put on display. We had loaded the car the evening before in preparation as neither of us were early risers.
There was a lively bustle of people bringing all kinds of items for sale, leather goods, jewellery, postcards, paintings and other rather suspect items that I would not have attached the word “craft” to. The yard itself was very old and had a cobbled surface, half timbered features and could have been something out of Dickens, it seemed a very suitable place for a craft market.
I don’t know if there is an art to setting up a stall? We spent ages putting out stuff and moving things here and then moving them there. We argued about whether we should have a few choice items or load the table with lots? In all my time selling on stalls, marquees, exhibitions and shop displays I never fully worked out the subtlety of selling. Maybe we should have done a course on it, but it never occurred to me and would it have made a difference, I don’t know? We tried all different ways and sometimes it worked and we sold lots, but then the next time we sold b……. all!
The other mystery was what things would sell? I don’t think either Mike or I had the “popular touch”, despite all our artistic talents, selling goods and promotion was not our strong points. We did in the end decide on what would be about right, a sort of compromise and once the pots were out we settled down to wait.
Now the pots were out on display we sat patiently, rather like a spider in its web waiting for a fly. Slowly and imperceptibly my boots began to turn to ice and the clinging cold seeped in underneath and through the gaps of my clothing. I stamped and jumped and shivered while slowly a troop of people wandered round the yard.
The thing I found tricky was when someone casually walked up to the stall; do you jump up immediately and engage them in conversation or, do you pause and let them peruse? Not being that brilliant at the casual conversation I tended to hold back, but often they then drifted away and I could have lost a sale. I Iooked enviously at other stallholders, who were engaging lots of customers and getting lots of sales I did learn that if you could engage them in talking, that not only did you maybe get a sale from them, but that others would then be less shy and would come up and buy also. So you often got a flurry of sales and then nothing for ages.
Potential customer strategies were also interesting, many would wax lyrical about the pots and say how cheap they were, but would look round for something we didn’t have and ask for that. For example, they would say
“I like your teapots, do you have a coffee set, I don’t drink tea?”
We would have to say no not at the moment. This meant they could get out of actually putting “their money where their mouth was” They also, very often asked for uniformity like factory made items, not realising that surely it’s the variety and differences which make studio pottery more interesting and worth more too? This was such an important element in Denis’s psyche, the work had to be pushing boundaries experimental and focused on individuality not consistency.
The day passed excruciatingly slowly, we took turns in taking a walk and warming up in a cafe with a coffee, but despite that we were nearing hypothermia by the time it was late afternoon and light was fading. I was aware too, that I had to drive back on the bike before I could warm up in a hot bath at home.
We packed up very quickly and decided to unload the pots on the Monday instead of that evening. We had sold a few things and as this was to be a regular Saturday, felt we would gradually develop our customer base over the coming weeks.
I then hit the road, very tired and trekked on home passing the brooding hump of Boxhill again and finally getting home for that well earned hot bath.
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