Shelves & Stock
For years, dozens of neatly arranged and organised tools, mostly for wood-working, have hung on the walls of our spare room. Each sitting in their own hand-made cradle or clip, they were within easy reach and saved rummaging through drawers or tool-boxes. Visitors and in-laws had become used to sleeping in the “tool-room” and I had long justified this by not wanting to see them rust in a damp and draughty shed.
Our eldest daughter recalls drifting off to sleep, when she was little, gazing and wondering at the array of blades and widgets sharing her bedroom.(!)
Looking back they were testament to a phase of my life when I had considerably more time on my hands, and felt a pressure to ‘Plan Ahead’; to get things done now, which would serve me in the future (if only this had extended to financial planning!).
More recently, after a fit of studio building in 2016, they adorned the walls of my micro-studio.
It was only after a more extended, prolonged period of making, thanks to our friend Covid-19 and UK lockdown, that I began to resent their presence and long for something else.
I suppose that the things we hang on our walls represent a kind of self-affirmation, offering a degree of comfort in the constancy with which they looks back at us. They encapsulate a personal History we tell ourselves, reminding us of selected aspects of our past. And the help forge the hopes and ambitions for our future.
As I began taking the Orbit series from the glaze firings, and turning each piece over in my hands, I could see that these were the hopes and ambitions I needed to reaffirm in my studio. These were the glimpses of the past which rang true enough to warrant cling on to.
And so the searching through skips and building sites began afresh, until I found the wooden locker doors and plywood sheeting which could be converted into a shelving unit.
There is something glorious about realising a need for change and then being able to see that change through. In the moments of uncertainty I can glance up at the work on these shelves and find a reason or two to push through. In the moments of over confidence there is always a slightly disappointing rim or foot suggesting that it might just take another lifetime or two to fully rapture all the magic in one piece.
Just as your siblings help you from becoming too big for your boots with a well time anecdote of how you once tried to walk across a pond, or called your teacher ‘Mum’, these reminders seem to be keeping me in line.
In practical terms, they are glaze samples and examples of weight and volume, shape and surface. In emotional terms, they are a compass, or a whisper in the ear; a hand on the shoulder helping me onwards.
Once the shelves are full, I will probably begin to resent the work still sitting there. Much the same way as children in their mid twenties really needing to fly the nest, for the sanity of all concerned, I hope to see them sold but, for the time being they are welcome company.
