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Dacorum & Chiltern Potters Guild

the heart of pottery, clay & ceramics in Hertfordshire and the surrounding counties

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[29 September]

We have long been considered part of the Boxmoor autumn fair (formerly the Conker Festival), and once again we are invited to take part.

We will take our wheels for have a go, and if the weather is clement we will do hand building too.
Whatever the weather, we will have punters looking out for us, so we must be prepared for anything.
The jobs to be done include managing the workshop area and clients, teaching throwing, clay prep, and selling pots. With a hand building table if possible.
If throwing is not your thing there are plenty other ways to help, and you do not need to be a throwing wizz to help anyone have a go on a wheel (no results are guaranteed!).
A few volunteers to help pack up at the end are always most welcome.
The trust look after us very well, providing an open tent for the workshop, a selling table in the craft tent, a generator, and even hot water!!
It helps to bring layers of clothing, waterproofs and wellies (the event is on water meadows) your own pinny if throwing, an old towel etc.
Also food and drink. (There is good coffee on sale)
Bring work to sell, but remember that the purse is a small one. Make sure you have priced your pots with a label that also has your initials or name on.
There is no commission to pay.
If you have not been before this is a mini country fair over the whole weekend. We are only there on Sunday.
The venue is Blackbird Moor next to St Johns church on Station Rd, Hemel Hempstead HP1 1JY .
 Look out for the church with a spire in the fields near the river/canal between Hemel town centre and the main line station.
Setting up will be at 9.30am with a view to starting at 11am and running till 3pm.
We should be away by 4pm.
Get back to me asap if you can help or for further info.
Thanks, Ros
[25 September]
A friend of Colin our treasure is looking for a secondhand

wheel and kiln. If you can help or advise please get back to me and I will pass your message on.
Thanks, Ros

[23 September]

The committee is currently reviewing our use of storage. We have a good deal of materials that cannot be stored in our lock up garage. Materials such as paper wrappings and table clothes for our exhibitions are best stored in the dry. Currently these items are scattered among the committee members and keeping track of them is quite a job.

If you live in the Kings Langley and/or St Albans areas, where most of our current activities occur, and actually have some suitable storage to spare, do get back to me or Mary Anne asap.

Any other ideas would be most welcome.

Many thanks, Ros

[10 September 2019]

Just a quick reminder that our exhibition social is this Friday from 7 – 9 pm at Kingsbury Barn. If you have not been before it is well worth coming – this ancient place is a wonderful setting for ceramics – and makes for a friendly and relaxed get together.

This year you are invited to bring a few nibbles along and something to drink. Glasses will be provided.
Do allow extra time for parking. There is a big ‘Pub in the Park’ event that evening in Verulam park which means that the car park by the museum is unavailable.
On street parking is also very limited, so look to the NCP car parks in Gombards, St Albans AL3 5EN and Christopher Place, 3 Upper Dagnall St, St Albans AL3 5EA and allow a few minutes for a gentle stroll down Verulam Road and then turn left into Branch Road. Kingsbury Barn is on the right before you get to the river.
See you there!

[3 September 2019]

We have changed the advertised date of the AGM from Friday 11 Oct to Sat 12 Oct.

And our guest potter will be John Higgins our President.
John is looking forward to talking about his residency in China and will demonstrate how he throws his pots and then alters them to produce more sculptural forms.
The venue is our usual meeting place, the Methodist Church Hall in Kings Langley.
Doors will open at 8.30 am to set up the Fitzwilliam competition. Refreshments will be served at 9.30am while the judging is going on, and the AGM will start at 10am.
The competition judgement will follow and then John will give his presentation and demo.
We aim to finish and clear up by 1pm.
NB All entries for the competition must be in place before 9.25am when the door to the exhibition room will be closed.

[7 May 2019] coffee mornings

Hi there,
The next DCPG social coffee morning is this Tuesday 14th May at The Cafe in the Park at The Aquadrome, Frogmoor Lane in Rickmansworth WD3 1NB from 11.00am – 1.00pm.  https://thecafeinthepark.com/
* We will be meeting in the Quiet Room which just by the back of the serving counter or outside if the weather is warm * 
 
The Cafe in the Park is an independent cafe which has delicious home made cakes and other lovely breakfast and lunchtime meals, it is always a treat to go there. There is also a little shop which sells wholefood and organic foods. 
 
There is a large free car park and the cafe is only a short walk from the car park on hard standing surfaces.
Check the map below for directions :- From the A404 turn down Harefield Road, pass Tescos on the right then it is the first road turning on the right – Frogmoor Lane – this is signposted Aquadrome. This road goes over a small high Grand Union Canal bridge which leads to the car park.
Please come along and join in our relaxed get together, meet Guild members and talk about pots and other things …. Just let me know if you are coming so I can try and a table 🙂
Look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday 14th May,
Judi
PS – More coffee morning dates :-
June –  Friday 14th.  11.00am – 1.00pm
Little Heath Tea Room, Little Heath Lane, Potten End, Berkhamsted, HP4 2RY
July – Thursday 25th  11.00am – 1.00pm.
The Fisheries Inn, 2 Fishery Road, Hemel Hempstead HP1 1NA
August – Friday 9th 11.00 – 1.00pm
The Town Hall Museum+Gallery Cafe, Market Place, St Peter’s Street,
St Albans AL3 5DJ

[7 May 2019] Fitzwilliam Competition

The most popular theme is ‘Birds and bird baths’, with a total of 12 votes.

Second was wind chimes with 8 and third was hands with 7.
So you have a wide theme there, which can be interpreted as Birds and / or bird baths. I am looking forward to a myriad approaches!!
Good luck with your making.
Please remember that the rules of our annual competition are as follows:
1. The item must be made after the theme is announced.
2. It should be made by one member only. (Please check the status of your membership!)
3. It should be mostly or entirely ceramic.
The competition is held on the first meeting of the season, in October, and will be judged by our guest potter/demonstrator.

[11 March 2019] DCPG at Kimpton on Sunday May 5th

Hi,

Every year we run ‘have a go’ on the wheels in the village school as part of the Kimpton Art Fair and have become an integral part of the art and crafts day.
The Kimpton Art Fair began years ago as an art exhibition in the church to raise money for restoration. Now it is a three day affair involving most of the village and drawing in people from a wide area. We take part in the crafters day when there is also a village barbeque with jazz band and races for adults and children.
It is a busy day for us, the children love it, and there is plenty to see if and when you get the time.
 We will be helping children of all ages make a simple pot on the wheel, from 11 am – 4 pm. We set up at 9.30am and should be away by 5pm.
We will take two wheels and pots to sell. We need the services of three potters with basic throwing skills plus two others to help run the workshop and sell pots.
Do let me know if you are interested and tell me what you can help with – and put some pots aside for this lovely event.

Ros

[20 Feb 2019]

Dear all
I am afraid that this week’s DCPG Coffee Morning Social on this Friday 22nd February is postponed.
But please Save the Date for the Guild’s next coffee morning which is on Thursday 21st March  11.00am – 1.00pm 
at Cafe on the Corner, 39 Catherine Street, St Albans AL3 5BJ   
This a small cafe in St Albans run by Camphill Community Trust with delicious cakes, teas & coffees. More details and directions + map will be sent out nearer the time.
POTTERS OPEN DAY – 2nd March 9.30am – 5.00pm is also another wonderful day to catch up with everyone and see three national and international professional potters sharing their skills through individual talks and demonstrations throughout the day.
For more details please go to the latest DCPG newsletter + www.dcpg.org.uk + DCPG Facebook + DCPG Instagram
 
Tickets can be booked from The Sandpit Theatre, Sandringham School Academy, St Albans. AL4 9NX www.sandpittheatre.co.uk or Tel: 01727 7995656 or in person 11.30am – 15.30pm
DCPG members £20 Non-members £30 
All three potters will have work for sale ( cash & card ) +  a desirable raffle
Refreshments coffee / tea & cakes + lunch is available to purchase ( cash only )
Hope to see you at both events.
Best wishes,
Judi Tribe

[17 Feb 2019]

With three big Guild events coming up in the next few  months, and one of them in only three weeks, (POD), our publicity team is working flat out to update and produce publicity materials. For all of these events we want to promote the cause of ceramics and also the Guild as a group of enthusiastic and knowledgeable potters.
If you have any good quality and clear photographs that you may have taken of past DCPG events as well as any Friday meetings etc. please send them directly to David Evans. This would really help to publicise all the amazing things the Guild does.
Many thanks
Ros

[5 Feb 2019]

Hello everyone
We are excited to announce that the DCPG has managed to arrange a sculpture workshop run by the renowned sculptor Stuart Smith.
Stuart started his working life as a portrait sculptor for Madam Tussauds. He then worked on all types of independent commissions including work for both the film and TV industries. He has held numerous solo exhibitions of his own outstanding work in the UK and abroad.
The workshop could work on two levels;
1).
Stuart is happy for those members who are experienced in working on clay sculptures to bring their own projects/ ideas in and he will share his knowledge and experience with them
2)
For those who are more comfortable with the wheel or hand building but fancy having a go at sculpting in clay , Stuart is happy for you to bring along pictures / drawing/ideas and he will help you on your way.
There will also be a number of objects  ( figurative and non figurative )available for those who would like to use these as their models.

The workshop will be held on
Saturday 16th March  9am- 4pm   at
West Herts College Ceramics studio
Watford  Campus
Hempstead Rd
Watford WD17 3EZ
The cost will be £40 each plus approximately £5 for the clay.
If you would like to attend this workshop, please see Ros’s message for Sharon Goodman’s email address and write to her directly.

[20 Jan 2019]

DCPG members coffee morning – Thursday 24th January 11.00am – 1.00pm at the The Town Hall Museum+Gallery Cafe, Market Place, St Peter’s Street,
St Albans AL3 5DJ
February – Friday 22nd.          11.00am – 1.00pm
Fisheries Wharf Cafe, Fisheries Road, Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead HP1 1NA
March – Thursday 21st March  11.00am – 1.00pm
Cafe on the Corner, 39 Catherine Street, St Albans AL3 5BJ
April – Monday 29th  11.00am – 1.00pm
Hemel Food Garden Sunnyside Rural Trust, Central Nursery, Two Waters Road, Hemel Hempstead, HP3 9BY

[07 Jan 2019]

DCPG: New Year’s Greetings

Dear DCPG Members
Wishing you all a Happy New Year and a reminder that the Potters Open Day (POD 2019) is on March 2nd at The Sandpit Theatre, St Albans. We would really appreciate volunteers to help the day to run as smoothly as in previous years. If you have helped before or not and would like to do so please contact John Higgins. There are a variety of tasks to do from helping to set up on the Friday afternoon to helping at the door, food, sales of makers work, directing the flow. raffle ticket sales, striking the set on sat eve. and others yet to be decided. Its a great day so please do consider helping. As ever, the more the merrier.  John Higgins and the POD team
Our next meeting is on the coming Friday – 11 Jan. Our guest potter will be the fine ceramic artist Joy Trpkovic. Joy is self taught, her work is quite unique and she has won prizes in international competitions. This promises to be an inspiring evening.
Doors open as usual at 7pm. Refreshments will be at 7.30pm and the meeting will run from 8 – 10pm.

15 October 2018

Congratulations to DCPG member Wendy Peters, winner of this year’s Fitzwilliam Competition with her totem pole!

08 Sept 2018

Murray Fieldhouse, 1925 – 2018

Bowls by Murray Fieldhouse (V&A Museum)

Murray Fieldhouse was an important figure in post-war studio pottery who edited the magazine Pottery Quarterly, the first periodical on the subject, which came out irregularly from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s, and was one of the founder members of the Craft Potters Association.

Murray was born in 1925, and after an unconventional wartime national service, when which he became a pacifist, he alighted on the crafts as a way of living out his Utopian and anti-establishment ideals. The choice of pottery came later. He served an apprenticeship with Harry Davis in Cornwall, who was also an anti-establishment Utopian, but more austere in his habits than Murray, who was well-known for his enjoyment of life.

In the 1950s, Murray ran Pendley Manor, an education centre in Hertfordshire to which he invited most of the top names in studio pottery to demonstrate. When I was researching the life of Dora Billington, he gave me some photos of her demonstrating there.

Pottery Quarterly in its early days contained reviews of everything that was happening in British pottery and is an important record of the period, but Murray was a fierce advocate of the Leach style of pottery and his reviews of exhibitions by potters who didn’t follow it became harsher over the years. Nevertheless, he was a close friend of William Newland, who didn’t like Leach’s artistic dominance.

Marshall Coleman

Murray Fieldhouse was also one of the originators and founding members of the Dacorum and Chiltern Potters Guild. Murray along with Ray Phipps and Tony Plessner organised the first inaugural meeting in January 1975 and with over 350 people attending, the Dacorum and Chiltern Potters Guild (DCPG) was formed. Murray became the Guild’s first Secretary in 1975 and then President until 2011. Murray organised many Guild activities; the Potters Open Days / weekends, initiatied the “pot crawls”, many Raku and salt / soda firings and hosted social summer parties at Northfields Studio.

Judi Tribe

I joined the Guild around 1999 when Murray Fieldhouse was the president and at that time he would always act as MC for the Potters Open Day, an important annual Guild event which still continues. Murray was a literary man with a wonderful memory and love of good company. He wrote the second book on pottery making in the mid 1940’s when paper was still rationed – it was a very small book with small print and thin paper. (The first was by Bernard Leach). He later became editor of A&B Black and thus remained a fount of knowledge about the studio pottery movement. He must have been a most enthusiastic teacher for he and his pottery students founded in the Guild in 1975.
He and Dorley remained great friends and supporters of the Guild to end of his life, and many of us have fond memories of our cheerful and generous host at firings held in the old damson orchard at Northfield Studio. Even at the last soda firing in 2016 he appeared in a wheelchair with a bottle of red wine.
His passing, while marking the end of an era, also is a time for celebration of how his love of pottery and joy in making has been passed on to another generation. ‘From little acorns great oaks grow’.

Ros McGuirk – present Chairperson of the Dacorum and Chiltern Potters Guild

Murray Fieldhouse’s funeral will be held on Monday 17th September at 2.00pm
at the parish church, St John the Baptist’s, Station Road, Aldbury, Hertfordshire HP23 5RW

There will be a gathering afterwards at The Greyhound Inn in the village of Aldbury.

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Events​ ​of​ ​Interest​ ​to​ ​Members

Clay & Art Exhibitions, Open Studios and Ceramic Festivals – locally and nationally.

Friday 19th – Sunday 21st August Art in Clay – Hatfield http://www.artinclay.co.uk
8th – 30th September:  Herts Visual Arts Open Studios https://www.hvaf.org.uk