In the most recent stoneware firing there were several pieces using a new ash glaze, whose significant ingredient was bramble ash from the garden bonfire. This used as a “Jun” glaze produced a pleasing pale blue with a very good surface. Over sgraffittoed iron oxide slip, the glaze produced a lustrous copper colour.

Besides the new bramble glaze, there were several ceramic pictures, using a variety of oil-spot, jun and tenmoku glazes. Three of these pictures, and some of the bramble-ash-glaze dishes appeared in the Mill Cove Gallery’s new volume of Irish Ceramics.

During Covid-19 lockdown, the late Alwyn Gillespie (d.11th.September 2021) started a Picture-a-Day Whatsapp group and asked me to join it. Which led to me starting life-drawing again….of the nearest available models…our cats. These are all small paintings, pen and ink and brush-pen on card. They have now been collected into a book, due out later in October this year, to illust rate Christopher Smart’s 1763 poem, “For I will consider my cat Jeoffry.”

Recent earthenware