I have really enjoyed working with the clay from Clee Hill over the summer and making a range of glazes from the locally named Dhu Stone (dhu meaning black in Welsh, this is an olivine basalt rather than dolerite as I have said before) mixed with the local clay, wood ash and small quantities of quartz (to help produce a more glassy glaze). I have also wanted to represent the copper seams running beneath the Shropshire Hills, and have used a zircon silicate white glaze with 2% copper carbonate to help give a band around the external rim to represent these layers. I have loved working in this amazing landscape and will be increasingly representing this connection and fascination through my photographs and drawings:

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I have entered some of the small cups / bowls made using Clee Hill clays and glaze materials as part of my response to the Holburne Museum collection (wanting to represent the beautiful simple Middle Eastern drinking cups referred to by Omar Khayyam in the Ruba’iyat). Here is one that went to the shop for sale along with a postcard of the photographs shown above.