Since I last wrote a blog we’ve been disconsolately watching the gorgeous yellow and red leaves being blown off the trees, and trying to ignore the pelting rain. The days are getting so much shorter. But at least we don’t have to go to work, or anywhere at all for that matter and Al and I have lots to keep us occupied and distracted.

Actually I find myself so grateful for that unexpected phone-call from Jonathon Bancroft Snell back in August. Normally I poddle along in my studio during the Fall, making whatever jugbirds and other useful pots that I think folks might like for Christmas presents. But this year, now that Jonathon has purchased one exhibition quality salty bird vessel for his own collection and shipped another one to its new home in Maryland, USA, I am encouraged to stretch my efforts more than usual. Luckily for me, he and his gallery partner Brian Barnum Cooke like both my salty stoneware creations and my jolly and colourful earthenware work.

I registered to participate in a soda firing workshop in November, back in the beginning of September. So recently, after I’d finished filling my kiln with an assortment of plates and just a few jugbirds I switched over to using the grey Plainsman stoneware clay. Now I have enough ware to fill my allotted two square feet of space in the kiln for next week’s soda firing. The clay is quite different from the easy terra cotta earthenware and as I work I need to consider what I’ll choose for the surfaces. Again, hints from Jonathon have directed my work, so this batch includes some more silly bird vessels as well as eggs! I plan to spray them all with some flashing slips tomorrow and get them into a bisque firing on Saturday. There are two pieces that I shall hold back for a further firing in December with my old guild, Fraser Valley Potters. Although both firings will be conducted with strict Covid protocols I shall enjoy brief conversations with several clay friends from over the years.

Yesterday Alan took his usual professional type photos of all the plates etc in my recent glaze firing so I’ll be sharing those with you in my next blog.

BUT, what a super surprise! long-time friend and long-ago editor of BC Potters Guild newsletter, Jan Kidnie and her husband Jim Jorgensen had an errand all the way out in Port Coquitlam yesterday morning. She asked if we could have a ‘garden visit’ on their way back to Vancouver. It was a rare treat to wander around the garden (the rain held off just long enough) and chat. They saw the new pots in the kiln shed, and my current drying stoneware pieces in the studio. Jim admired my ‘Life in the Time of Covid’ Pope’s Hat plate and Jan, bless her, fell in love with a brand-new yunomi. I let her take it home.. so this casual outdoor shot will have to suffice for my records. I’m so pleased to have it join her collection of pots!

Jan tells me that they popped in to PoMoArts to check the current ‘Winter Treasures’ show after they left here.