Ruth-Ann and I share a summer market table at the Hillsborough Farmer’s Market, Saturdays 9 – 2 pm, at the old Hillsborough Village Church, 2807 Main Street, here in Hillsborough NB.  

My adventure, Fundy Mud Pottery, is about processing and firing the  local Fundy mud I gather between my house and ‘The Rocks,’ while Ruth-Ann’s entity is her original limited edition Linocut Prints and cards.

Double click for Pottery as it happens on fundyheather flickr:

I sell at the Market, Fundy Farms Stand, Cape Enrage Gift shop, with Ollas over at Farmer Browns Greenhouse (&fbook)… and a special pink line just for my  special ‘Pink Church‘ girls, 4060 route 114 Hopewell Cape.  Just put some Chipody 1698 Pierre Thibodeau commemorative t-bowls over at Studio On the Marsh… don’t miss that place, or the party after the Monument unveiling.  I will have Chipody t-bowls there on a table in the Riverside Albert Exhibition Grounds, Friday Aug 16 afternoon. 

I pot toward Joseon Onggi and pre Celtic Beaker Culture styles.

Just now started sun drying clay again today, June 5 because Stacy put me up to it.  (Need a little push this time of year.) 

But, in the beginning… I start with over 80% raw local mud, adding ‘secret herbs and spices,‘ sometimes crushed shale, fire almost to a melt to get an attractive exterior sheen without the glaze I primarily reserve for the interior. 

Do I like it that way, wallowing up to my knees in local muck, forgoing most of the world’s glaze chemistry, or am I just cheap and stubborn beyond belief?  I don’t know the answer, if there is one… but watching the tidal bore roiling the river mud from my backyard window impressed on me that, if I could, I would try to use the resources in sight rather than truck clay in from very very far away.  Yes, good idea if you can do it.

And that thinking extends to my process and my pricing.  I once fire most everything, saving half my energy cost, use glaze sparingly.  Some nice people welcome me down on their property to gather clay which is not mine.  My lovely retailers need to pay the bills, so my prices should be moderate all around, and they are… and they will be.          

  Double click fundyheather flickr for Processing Fundy Mud:

Was successful testing a great wild clay from Keswick Ridge (samples collected by the family) gave it all away to good homes, then more blew in.  Better clay than I struggle with here, have places to sell it, but developing a rural resource near Fredericton involving even a small shovel in the ground is problematic.  (Still thinking this over, along with other NB prospects, one is certain to be real porcelain, the other is reported white, but I have not located it yet.  I’m looking for a low iron refractory clay, likely a porcelain, to go (what else?) to extremes with.)

Lately have a ‘in the off hours’ field hand dropping by to work on her wheel skills and had a great real artist over talking a co production.  Still sore from a mass retaining structure I built this week out of discarded asphalt slabs.  But-ugly, structurally better than flagstone.       

Other activities?  Stone stairs need railings, big gas kiln build needs tested, (controls are in Italian.)  Moved the sawmill to another log cabin build.  My big welder is departed, need to go back to where I started.  Have a lot of half built furniture that needs iron legs.  Looking at my old clown stuff, might bring Star back from the last century, in the case you want to move your event down to the next level… like, my level.  Did a fun thing for Bee Day. 

Now playing… the bansuri, a north west India flute Krishna used to pick up chicks.  The G-bass will tag along in western pop style, and is the largest model that can be readily learned.  The target is to play the big classical Hindustani E-bass, which is more emotional instrument than musical instrument.  My old fingers, ruined in stone work, can’t reach the holes, so I ‘had a’ butcher it a bit.  /still waiting on delivery of  Rav Vast b Kurd, being built for me in Perm, Russia.

Come for tea if you can find me.  Hint: look for an iron fish on the road barn, and a Thunderbird carving beside the door to my so called studio.  I don’t sell from the porch here, just drink King Cole with who ever comes by while I plot world domination.

email: fundymudpottery@gmail.com

Nice portrait on my business card?  From a painting by a friend I miss: https://lynneciaccoart.weebly.com/

for time well wasted, my ventures on flickr!

Double click fundyheather flickr for Furniture and whatever else:

Double click  fundyheather flickr for Garden design/build… and rock: