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 on a table in the Riverside Albert Exhibition Hall Friday Aug 16 afternoon. For fall, we are gearing up to do art pop-ups out of the side of the rusty trusty ’89 Dodge Lanshark with Ruth-Ann, the side kicks, my travelling pottery wheel, maybe the Rav Vast if I can learn to play it better than I do now.
I try to pot toward Joseon Onggi and pre Celtic Beaker Culture styles. But any spontaneous failures run amok in their own direction until they succeed or I landfill them behind the tea house in disgust.
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.
NEWS?
About 1000 lbs of clay gathered and roughly processed into buckets for the winter season. Wood is down in the yard and we are off to Northern Ontario, for an event in my old 1 room school that is now the community center in the Penage district
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. Just received a Rav Vast b Kurd from Perm, Russia. It’s a type of advanced steel tongue drum. I play it slowly with felt mallets to get a soothing sound somewhat like a harp. Starting ‘talks’ with a friend of a friend who can get us a quality shakuhachi flute from Japan.
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/
