Richard Batterham - Independent Potter

everything starts here with clay I don't know how much I use I've never really worked at that era I mix up twice a year roughly and I roughly have 2408 that's 4,800 wait a year roughly there was 8 tons here and that'll see me out I think originally somebody gave me a recipe for some clovers wasn't very nice but it worked and then gradually have a replace things and it's ended up with this one trial and error better app chiefly [Music] this is a fairly new arrangement that if you put some sand in the bottom it's easier to get it out sort of thing I should have learnt years ago but I didn't this is part of the mixture because when it when it comes out all the sound will come out with a clay this is what the young ones can't understand you know it's much more efficient to get somebody to mix it up my machine is in your piping bag well I'm missing out on all the beginning of it that's where everything begins and they miss out on clay I worked now once it takes when I'm mixing up classes you get a good straight run it's about a week so that's a fortnight a year doing this roughly speaking they think they can then inject the art at the end whereas actually any art that may be involved comes through the whole business and and if you just try to inject something on the end doesn't really work I think if you do it yourself you don't actually know how much you do do I mean if you do something yourself you don't know I'd be online anyway conscious that that what you've done has a bit of you in it it's just a job it's just something we should you do but when you're doing it you don't think this is my handwriting and I'm baring my soul to every one of you it's Islam that's a bit intrusive you're married February and we moved into the house on August by holidays and I had first biscuit firing on December the 31st so in that less than a year we'd built a kiln on the clay and Mellie got fired and has her baby part of the quarter part of the quarter of six and a quarter inches across I learned from the fiddle that's in a sense why I've got this win because when brilliance and dives and does he usually like this and his whole way of working and things were so different let's see when you see somebody doing if you have no idea what their fingertips are doing anything especially on earth almost told Johnson City Your Honor on a treadle wheel even though it's a foot thing you're kind of up with my kind of machine whereas in this one knew this other city and you have all your tools handle around this you have to adjust it how's your day it's very good way of learning I think this is much slower long time ago remember Oh father said I'm sure being positive for years this is said I don't understand why you turn these he's sort of you make this just straight off there and so you can but I think is that see quicker to do them and turn them if you're quick up turning there we are leveled it that's those you've never pull hell off a very very particular there's a little bit to softness right well these were due for jugs of teapots too big for bones one of the glories of clay really if you put a handle on a pot put surprise dance it's the kind of iron here but it's absolutely absurd because if it's got a handle on its immediately seen as a useful day today it was a like and Lossless know they kind of invent invite you to pick this thing up but they've got to me they've got pending unlocks and scratch it yeah he's a bit big man this is for a bigger joke until nice wash that's a very good shape just finish it off all the bottoms and these days I usually give it a little bit on the bottom that's a new side how old jug firing is very exhausting even though I don't do much but sit lurch and [Music] keep an eye on it it's silly exhausting I go rather on the principle that is always worked before it will list this is a very anxious time very because you never quite know what's happening this is all a new arrangement this this is big logs keep it giving now the atmosphere how much smoke you got and occasionally it'll get too hot on one side even though Justin and also in case anything goes wrong in case you get afar twice it's very nearly happened better to muck up the firing them another house the off cuts through burn up very quickly I gotta get some more logs if you try to start the burners from Kohl's they'd head like it but if you get it going with wood it's much easier there's a taps in the air and one for the oil and you have to adjust it now although bonus they're automatic that the automatic would be useless for this show you can see that if you look in there who the flames just coming up that's a useful one that because I can keep an eye on tax cameos [Music] when you've got several months work setting there another couple of hours firing is nothing it's often takes a you know an hour or two to get settled down there's full of anxiety whether you'll make it and what it'll be like when you do get that and then finally switch off the burner and shut up the channel it's great relaxation we looked at houses all over the place David Thomas came down the road and he was the agent for the crowd and I said to him anywhere in the village that's you know available and he looked over the gate how about this but so that's probably not over 50 yes ah been a good day so far I started when I was 13 and one of the things that you could do that's what I did at school probably at the cost of quite a lot of other things but stuck with I think school was much much less pressurized and I wasn't being pushed to have three any levels or anything matter I think it's in the Apocrypha about potters and their position in societies and they're people who mustn't me they don't they're not in charge of anything and they just get on with it but gist of it seem to be that it's a because it takes a long time and it's relatives learned to learn how to do it all that so stuff that it's the sort of stabilizing thing with it can't keep chopping and changing or huh well Thomas feel a bit guilty about hurry to make things into pieces is that's the sort of admitting that you can do it in one piece [Music] if you just start going right like this you push it all over one side I found out the hard way somebody's asking the other day you know what what makes a good pot and all that stuff this is fairly common question one of the most important to Z is the handling of the clay not necessarily the shape I think but it's it's the way it's handled as I suppose is the sort of character of it I mean it doesn't matter somebody's fat or thin but that can be that can be a nice person or bloody awesome person come there and I think it's the same of the pots [Music] I've never used to lecture I feel someone had done of Homer today using you will he had one with a stick just heard it right and there's a traditional posture happens York sir saw this film of Hamid of making pots that he and his car he didn't give himself a chance is he using it because he had a ring some industrial wheel churning away now I mean this would be much quicker if I was able to just throw it up in one piece but I can't do that why I haven't got the skill for it to us when I was instant ice and a Japanese boy he was there and he'd brought one of these with him from Japan and to see him working on it and the sort of feel of it it looked to me so much Sara what's kinda and these kind of machines that people were sitting up at 7:00 when he came here I hadn't got a wheel so I never regretted it this is just to close the top up it's not to make a neck something happens to a shake it's something quite subtle things and if it works you know suddenly really finish it me to do it necessarily but it's all to do with selecting and choosing sir so next time you make the really sort of bear in mind sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't I have done a lot of these yes I I haven't made any lately one of the reasons for them is that they're they're very useful packet packing the killer well on the topic here missus arts you need some taller things and these are very useful for that also they're very nice too we just start making to getting going on the mothers the actual the bits top bottom these are quite quite easy to make so that you know when you first start making after long break and a good way I'm running most of them isolated which are feldspar wood ass and clay and you arrive at the thing by trial and error so it's a matter of testing and put them over a bucket and pour it and then just don't go stop because if you just pour it quite often you miss it round the neck because it just drops off but if you then just don't you know then glaze then it's slightly thicker on the top and on the bottom like a car you wreck so we said the idea isn't to make pots quickly it's to make quick as in life a lot of people get really excited about how fast they can do things and he said it's nothing to do with that sweater up that's blue hot [Music] that's the same things on a lot of things mounted up that's nice one but then if somebody who doesn't think about or know hot pots would say well these are all the same if you have an exhibition and you'd put it on it only shares people who are interested I don't think you want to tell people that they ought to be interested I think the biggest benefit is that it you have got to look carefully at what you're doing and push the birds out a bit and make a choice you know if stuff just vanishes out in the workshop straight away you can usually kind of just lose track of things but I think it's good for you to have a look and see what's really working and choose the best and then share it with other people who might like to see it Supt you to make your own response what you're looking at rather than being told by some scholar why it's worth looking at you like it's a nice one not forget with nice well made these are really difficult handless because you've got such a job to hold a thing up but everything gets bigger you see these this one started Isis that size that's new that's the original size it takes quarter of pile of tea but whose Cologne but there's something very endearing about small things with lids that's a solid place and that's what the blue is is what I did was in the kiln I little bits of biscuit brush with cobalt and you just put them near and he took the fire and the cobalt take off and sort of blah she's gonna see nearby doesn't there's another one in here that's from New Zealand yes that's another one issue that had a bit of cobalt sitting beside it these over the years they got they got a bit flamboyant on the top and the tops got too big and if you make the top too big to here then they get really pointed underneath because the next the next join here's is dictated some other size of the bats and if you get too big then you get them going right this don't like this I mean obviously you had to decide with this this or that but in the making over time all those all sorts of things present themselves and then you you're selecting all the time you know and then you learn that oh you mustn't get too fat and I mustn't go too thin or so and with some of the stuff which I put aside upstairs is almost there is a warning what not to do this is the very early one you know you've got to begin somewhere but I think it's quite helpful to have stuff in a retrospective some early stuff which is pretty awful because it gives out people starting yeah well I first was starting these teapots are absolutely immaculate fit as I pleased with but actually I'd rather prefer them not a percentage yet you know to have a little bit of a little freedom these are almost kind of engineering fatigue these the least comfortable you know to be a good fit I don't like them to be sloppy but I don't like them to be so that's a nice fish this one's got a lovely hands off you can't look at it you have to feel it it fits my hand anyway yeah but the southey is it in the neck submission London the fact that it's got a nice handle don't forget completely unnoticed because you won't be able to touch things and in a way it have a partially exhibition where you can't have your stuff and seeing pictures in the dark I like they work really well for food and stuff you know they come to lift things off the table I asked the bottom has to be made rather wide because when it shrinks it can't move here but he goes in there this nice what was fired in France it was an exhibition and I didn't know which one quite often you do things just a sort of mistake or something that happens and then you notice it and then use it build on it I do generally about 5'4 a years I used to add things up after forever I gave that up years ago allowing some of big things some little things you need you can't you can't work that out once when I worked it out so I said how many you make I looked through all my making lists and I've made that year about three thousand but it might not always be three thousand there might be more you know suppose what you're making [Music] if it was 3,000 it will be 3/5 officials in 150 something but this is irrelevant anyway [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Paul Fenwick Mazza Films

Views: 43,571

Rating: 4.9316239 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: tN3hRRIO4-c

Length: 30min 0sec (1800 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 26 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/RESTORATION_INSIDE]

craftsmanship always has a very interesting aspect

[u/Sad_Exam5906]

Looks more like a hairy potter... 😂