Mike and Midori visit Rye

It's a cats and dogs with thunder day here in Canterbury. Glad to be indoors. I'm wearing a fleece! But we had a glorious summer day up to 30c on Saturday. Friday was 27C. The last summer days in the year possibly.

Mike and I visited Rye on Friday to celebrate Mike's birthday. We toyed an idea of visiting London, but he chose Rye because he hadn't visited Rye for a long time and wanted to see how it has changed.

Rye, East Sussex, is about 1 hour drive from Canterbury. It is a small town with the medieval buildings. It used to have a defence harbour before the Dutch came and drained marshes.

From the parking on the river side, we climbed the steep hill, and the first thing I saw was this shop! Knoops! Buttons in Dutch, I was taught. A lovely Jane, who and whose mother lives with two of my rabbits and a lamb, works here. I brought her a ceramic brochure from CAL as she has a degree in ceramics. I knew it was her off day, so I was going to leave it there.

 We were also very keen to try their drinking chocolate! They have white, milk and dark with all sorts of strength. The numbers on the wall is percentages of chocolate you in drinks!  We eventually had 70% dark chocolate milkshakes as it was a warm day. 

Friendly owner and staff

Then Jane appeared in pretty summer clothes! Look! We had a chat for about an hour. It was our first meeting but we have known each other on Twitter for a few years. Nice people on Twitter are nice people in person! She is a lovely gentle and quietly funny lady! 

 

Lovely sandals matching the skirt! 

Then she gave me her handknit Oystercatcher! Wowsie! I was given a souvenir! We saw lots of oystercatchers when used to do bird watching. We loved the sights of the colourful birds among the grey-white shorebirds.

I have no skill of knitting. None. So this cheerful bird gave me so much fun after this!

Jane made the oystercatcher! 

After leaving Knoops, and left Jane with her another boss, we walked to a town. There are cobbles everywhere.

But the first thing I wanted to do was to take photos and tweet my new avian friend. His name is William of Orange. So I asked Mike to get my mobile ready. I have no skill of fiddling with mobile. William decided to take a vantage point. He had a good view of a river. A family walked past him. They smiled at him!

Mike is used to a bird perching on his head. We have parrots and used to have tame finches.

A vantage point!

Rye has so many 'antique' shops, but in fact they are more like brocante.   

On the door

We spotted funny signs. :D

As the milkshakes were quite rich, we had a late lunch at Webbe's, which is a branch of Webbe's in Hastings, we found out afterwards. As soon as we entered, I knew it was a right place. I saw four ladies of certain age in floral and pastel dresses with 15cm high pin heel, lunching with champagne and oysters in the air con. 

Mike didn't drink. I had beer. This is Kentish brew called Curious brew from our favourite local wine maker, Chapel Down.   

I had sea bass.

Mike had sea trout.

As we were fullish, we shared a desert, basil bavaroi with dark cherry sorbet.   

After coffee, we were out in the sun again. I spotted a gate, which used to be a part of prison door.

Then we went to church tower. Last time we came with my mother, we went up. 

A rare view of Midori 

 All the time, William kept me cheering with his red eyes and orange bill.

William of Orange

 Behind the church, there were old buildings.

We didn't know then, but if we walked more, there was a castle! We walked in a wrong direction and found Admiral's house. William rested on the bell. 

The bell at the Admiral's house

   The shopping in Rye.

What are they?

 I found a frame shop, and bought three. If it were a bit closer, I would go back to get more! :D

Lovely lunch, rabbits and storm damages

Hello everyone. Today, we had a wonderful lunch with ceramic artist Karen Banks and photographer Paul Carr. They came to collect Angel. They are such nice people. We enjoyed their company so much! So far, all of the people I have met through my ceramics are really nice. Mike observed that people who like my work tend to be nice. I agree! I was spoiled by Karen. She gave me her beautiful work as a gift, which reminds me of herself; delicate, sensitive yet fun. I will take a good photo in daylight and share it with you next time!

Karen's website: http://www.karenbanks.co.uk/
Paul's website: http://www.fisheyecreative.co.uk/

A couple of rabbits are in my shop now. Two are already gone last night. They are really sweet. : )

Please look the right..

The big nosed one in my shop is in the middle, and, alas, the other cute one is missing from the photo. She is here. : )

I am looking the opposite way. This is my better side. :D

Bisque firing went successfully. I did finishing yesterday. I hope I can do glaze-firing next week.

It has been very stormy here in UK. We had some leaks from the flat roof to the entrance and guest WC on the New Year's Day. Luckily the floor is tiled so damage was limited to walls and ceilings. In comparison with those in flooded areas, we are lucky. Mike went up on the roof to investigate the next day. He couldn't find apparent problems. It seemed the gutter and rain pipe couldn't cope with the sheer volume of rain. He widened the the rain pipe which had some tar inside. We had torrential rain on that night. But there was no leak. Fingers crossed.

Leak! Soaked.

Smiley Mike goes to the roof with a trowel in hand.

 Pumpkin is as chirpy as usual. She trod water-logged garden, as if she had web feet! : D.

Pumpkin chases any sparrows with bread all over the garden!

 During the walk, we have seen more and more damages. Here at the entrance to University of Kent ground, at first I noticed that tree trunks on the ground, and wondered where they were from. Then all of sudden, ah-ha moment. The tall pine tree at the sign post is gone! It must have broken the wooden fence of the house on the right. The fence is gone, too!

About 5-6 meters of pine tree fell.

 About 30-40 year old pine tree was there when I was a student at the University of Kent. The pavement was designed for the tree.

The trunk is bigger than Pearl's head.

 All over the University ground, there were fallen trees.

It must have made big noise!

 The 'bomb pit' became a pond. It is usually dry hole.

And the leaning Leylandii had a hair cut. There are lots of tree surgeons around here and roofers are very busy. I hope there are a good stock of ridge tiles! 

The city council stopped here... eyesore

I hope you are safe and dry!

Cloud

Hello everyone. My day is finally back to normal, but I don't know what is really normal now. The last couple of afternoons I went to the studio to do some glazing. I have booked a reduction firing on Tuesday. There are about 15 pots to be glazed. I always get very tired after glazing.

In the studio I was given lovely comments on my work in the MA show. How nice! Lots of people told me that they like my artist statement. Here is the original version of my artist statement:
 

When I was a child I thought I would become a writer. My head was a full of imagination, memories, feelings, thoughts and stories. Once a while, they overtook my daily life. It wasn’t always easy for a child to live in the real world and my own world at the same time.  Especially as all my imagination, memories etc. just float around in my head, like clouds in the sky. I didn’t know what to do with them.

Now I capture the floating thoughts in ceramics. Once they were given shapes, they become grounded. They don’t bother my daily life. By creating ceramic sculptures, I file the information, which is, otherwise, difficult to classify, in drawers in my brain. I could bring every nuance and detail of my memories, stories, emotion and thoughts, back to life vividly when I see each sculpture

I create something small almost daily at night. I call them my journal. I am writing in ceramics. In this way, other people can also read.

I am thrilled to share my world with you here at this show. If you would like to know stories about any of my sculptures, just let me know. I have plenty to tell you about them.

I have never read any artist statements except for one written by a friend. I thought they were boring and unnecessary. So I made mine intimate and personal, just like what I create.  I hope you had interesting read.

It is a part of art school.

On Wednesday, Mike and I went to Mascalls gallery to see Gary Rutushniak's prints.  It was very interesting. His works remind me of Japanese graphic design during the period after the war. Strong straight lines, spiral/swirls and nostalgic colours make me feel like that. We enjoyed watching a video, too. Mascalls gallery is in a rural town in west Kent.

Numerous daddy long legs!

As my driving is dangerous and unreliable (Once I was lost for seven hours at Heathrow after I picked up my mother visiting from Japan and ended up in Oxford at one o'clock in the morning, instead of coming back to Canterbury. Friends told me that Oxford is in the opposite direction. It didn't matter to me!), Mike sat in a driving seat. Lots of peculiar clouds were over us on that day.

Cloud look alive!

Mike said they are called cumulous clouds

After the exhibition, we asked the young lady at the reception for a nice place to have a lunch. She recommended a pub called the Poet in a next village. At lunch time on Wednesday it was fully booked. We had to wait for a quite long time (I hate waiting but there was nowhere else and we were hungry.) but it was worth waiting. I had salmon fishcake in a cucumber, gherkin and caper sauce, and cream brulee with mango sorbet desert. Mike had fish and chips and chocolate fondant desert.

Our table looking at a busy junction in a small village (and a spider?)

Mike's chocolate fondant

My mango sorbet. Creme brulee was unfocused!

Some of you know, recently I made a cloud. Because of the show, I couldn't quite finish it.

Cloud I made on 29/08

This is Cloud I made last night. She is going to have a wing. I am going to make more work inspired by clouds.  

Cloud

Mascalls gallery: http://www.mascallsgallery.org/

Poet: http://www.thepoetatmatfield.co.uk/

   

Ceramic bonanza - bank holiday weekend

Hello everyone. We had a nice bank holiday weekend. I was busy making ceramics for the MA show coming up, and Mike looked after our animal family and the house. MA show private view is from 6 to 8 pm on the 6th September at Sidney Cooper gallery on the High street, Canterbury. If you are around, do pop in, and say hi to me!  I am the only Japanese there, and I usually look cheerful. Mike says that I always get up from the right side of the bed!

Last Friday, the studio was so hot that I couldn't concentrate, so I brought clay back home, and finished masks in the garden. Mike was playing with his new toy after work. This mask is called 'Syria'.

'Syria'

'Wasted talent', 'Syria' and 'Gandhara' 

I have done numerous firing recently. I fire two kilns at the same time; bisque and glaze.

The severed body in front of a new head behind

Glaze firing with several glaze tests

On Sunday, between making ceramic sculptures, we took dogs to the campus for a walk. It was a nice break.

Are we there yet?
We haven't started yet, Pearl!

Faster, faster!

Who's that? 

Look at her shiny eyes and white teeth! Topaz is back! 

I feel younger!

Bank holiday Monday, I spent about six hours to try to create a mix media sculpture, and failed. Ugh. Never mind, There is such a day. Mike took me out for a lunch. Beer was for me. Water was for him!

I had the last steak for a while. I will be off beef until badger cull stops. 

Mike bought John Rocha shirt on sale + Blue cross! We also got this. It was an alcoholic type. That's exactly I had needed after wasting my day!

Whisky is the best. : )