“I didn’t sleep well, because of the moon I think”, was the first thing Lesley said to me when I visited her garden lab. A bitterly cold day, the lawn leading up to the self-built headquarters of Essence and Alchemy, was still dashed with frost and Jack, Lesley’s sheepdog seemed pleased to see me, providing more energy than Lesley or I could muster.

Ahead of tomorrow evening’s update which includes our pieces from the October firing at the Manor wood kiln, I thought i’d share a preview of the pieces we have for sale.

Now that we're in November and 'that-time-year' approaches, my diary has been opened, scribbled all over and some decisions and plans have been made - here are some dates for various webshop updates and our Open Studio Seconds Sale event...

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve made a new journal post - honestly - it’s been tricky, but I won’t dwell on it and all the negative things Covid-19 has brought us this past year. Instead, I wanted this post to be about something else - about finding salvation and beauty in broken or redundant things and what we can learn from these objects.

We’re often asked about our inspiration and influences for making our ceramics, so I thought I’d put down some of our thoughts in this journal post.

I can’t say we eased into the New Year in a slow or thoughtful manner, rather, it was a head first dive into a flurry of work and deadlines. For some reason it’s often like this for us in January, we don’t have that quiet month of reflection that so many makers seem to have, but I won’t grumble, it’s good to be busy and we have had fun along the way. And we’ve made so many teapots…