February is almost amongst us, the month of Valentine’s Day. I thought, what could be more romantic than a Winter’s walk, collecting foliage and then returning home to make an arrangement in our new faceted flower frog….

I spent a day last week reflecting on our work and business in 2022, and setting some ideals for 2023. Normally we do this sort of thing at our year end in May, but for some reason the long break this Christmas has given me some food for thought.

With most crafts an array of the most wonderful words for technical processes and tools can be found, and pottery is no exception. We have things like ‘leatherhard’, ‘biscuit’, ‘chuck’ and many more. But this week I’ve been thinking about the word ‘slip’. Clay slip is clay mixed with a little water. It’s generally a lower viscosity than say, a lump of clay for throwing with, and can be used for slip casting - but in our studio we mainly use slip as a tool for joining components together, such as a handle to the body of a mug or a spout to a teapot.

Perhaps to the bystander, the pursuit of making and selling pots may seem blissful in its uncomplicated and straightforward nature. I mean, the potter must spend their days with hands in clay, at the wheel perhaps, or foraging for clay - I’m picturing a cinematic panning across the studio with ambient music, beautiful, aesthetically pleasing clay splatters and glaze spills and unloading the kiln with huge smiles on our faces.

To celebrate the launch of the Autumnus Vase for BATCH 1, we got in touch with our friend Vicki, founder of Uncut Stems, to see if she’d like to create something for us.. Luckily she said yes and it has been a joy to see how Vicki and her colleague Louisa decided to style the vase.

I’ll be frank, I’ve been short on time this month so this is a super concise edition of our monthly studio journal. School holidays, preparing for BATCH, consuming and preparing cheesecake. A massive shop update. Packing pots for days. It’s been a month!