Avoiding the Evil Eye

When I lived in Egypt, long ago, on the Nile River, which ran beneath my balcony, every vessel from the tiny fishing boats to the ornate gold floating pleasure cruisers, bore painted eyes on their prows like those on the pharaoh’s tombs to ward off danger. Taxi’s and Lorries and the big people carriers , so prone to accidents they were known locally as flying hearses, held together with dust and rust all had brightly coloured eyes superimposed on a hand shaped design, plastered on them. Even the Zabbaleen, the despised Coptic Christian garbage collectors carts had them and in Upper Egypt, the women place hand prints on their mud walls with ochre pigment. Every shop, every office every handcart selling Coca-Cola had a hand and an eye hanging from it, even the Cairo Hilton had one above the front desk and the horses pulling the caliches on the Corniche wore them on their bridles . In shops everywhere you could buy self adhesive versions of varying degrees of luridness for a few pence. The goldsmiths make them encrusted with gems and sell them to the wealthy for a fortune.

This hand and eye symbol is the خمسة, Khamsa/Hamsa meaning “LIVE” in Arabic, a protective symbol used all over the world. Look and you will find it in Jewish houses sometimes inscribed with prayers; you will see it too amongst the Masonic symbols. Turks and Greeks paint it on their boats. In America and Europe between the wars it was worn by women on charm bracelets and was as common as a horse shoe or a four leafed clover as well known as a a wishbone.

It dates back before Christianity, before Judaism and before Islam so far back that its origins and full symbolism are hazy. Do the 5 fingers represent the 5 books of the Torah or the 5 pillars of Islam, is the eye the eye of Fatima Zahra, the daughter of the prophet Muhammad, or of Miriam the sister of Moses who hid him in the bulrushes to save him from the Pharaohs slaughter of all the Hebrew newborn infants? No one knows but across the world it has become a sing of the protecting hand of God, whoever that God may be, a magical talisman against the envious attentions of the evil eye, an amulet of protection and it crops up in the most unlikely places. Even Hollywood celebs are wearing them now, Nicole Richie for one, mind you with as a best friend Paris Hilton she may need all the protection she can get!



If you need a little protection yourself or just think these would be fun to hang up in your home have then email me.


Ceramic Blue Evil Eye


( 10cm wide handmade and cobalt glazed on a blue beaded leather thong.)
3.00 sterling plus 2.50 sterling postage.

Ceramic Hand of Fatima


(18 cm long handmade and glazed in bright colours on a beaded leather thong)
10.00 sterling plus 2.50 postage.

Broken Plates.

Digging in the garden I am for ever finding small shards of old French pottery which I collect in a most un feng shui fashion to clutter my studio with. I love the tiny glimpses of design and wonder at what the complete plate might have looked like and the stories that lie behind their destruction. Was it a child who dropped it on the unforgiving slate floor perhaps or part of a cherished dinner set the loss of which caused many tears? In my minds eye I can imagine some sunlit family celebration in summer the plates all placed with joy on long trestle tables laid with white cloths under the apple trees in the orchard and how one dish may have shattered at some small piece lost in the earth for me to find over a century later.

Even on holiday I trawl the tide line looking for lost fragments of peoples past lives. Never sure what quite to do with them but happy to find these serendipitous shards of beauty. One of my favourite pieces is no bigger than a child's finger tip with a small floral design in red which I found in a river one hot day in the Pyrenees Orientalle. It is so small with barely a hint of the full picture , just one corner of a flower with petals like the suns rays, but I love it . It is that little remnant of broken dish that inspired me to make some ceramic pendants recently to hang on leather thongs. And here they are, an attempt to capture something of the original design and transport it into something beautiful and wearable.

I had so much fun making them that I went on to make some crosses in similar designs and had great fun making intricate little patterns with my brush and glazes. Each is only about 4.5 cm long and I am now thinking about earrings in porcelain . I wonder what the owner of the original plate would think to see them!

For more pictures and further deatils you can go to my shop front

http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/unpeuloufoque/product/ceramic_pendant

Franki goes to...Australia....

Meet Frankie, but you had better make it snappy, because he is heading down under to the land of OZ , where any day now he will grace a very smart black and white kitchen in Queensland. Franki is the first cockeral I have painted in a long time and I am rather pleased with him.







When I first started selling my work , well over 10 years ago, I did a lot of chickens, entire dinner services with flocks of feathery egg layers stomping about the plate rims, vast salad bowls with beady eyed light Sussex hens glaring up from under the oranges, jugs of all shapes and sizes with poultry of every hue cavorting about them. All gone now and not one remaining on my dresser, which is really sad as I love chickens , daft creature that I am!







We have kept chickens for years and used to have rather an exotic flock, courtesy of a friend who was breeder and a judge of fowl and feathers. I did the Country Show circuit selling my ceramics and after many a long weekend I'd become aware, as I was packing up my stall ,of the faint sound of scuttling and the gentle cooing noise hens make at bed time then there he would be coyly loitering by the tent flap with a trio to add to my collection. Our hen house was like a rural retirement home for rare breeds, model birds who didn't make it to the top.







Now alas we are down to one rather bolshy French hen. She lays like a trooper, although I am not sure troopers lay eggs, and spends her days wandering alone about the garden and the maize fields talking to herself like the last relic of a long dynasty, terribly well bred but definitely dotty. I keep trying to get her to make some new friends but each time I go out next morning and find her happily alone again. I think she and the fox have an agreement when fresh supplies come in she invites him over for supper.











And of course , to go with the tiles I had to do one of these, a plate to match Franki because a girl has to have something on which to put her egg sandwiches at teatime doesn't she ?



There is something about the way hens hold themselves, the gleam in their eye that continues to tempt me to try and capture it in glaze. Well if nothing else it makes a refreshing change from Doves!!



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Franki was drawn on a panel of 9 bisque fired majolica glazed 4"tiles with glaze chalks and underglazes then fired to a high temperature , and was a special commission , cost roughly 50 pounds sterling . Similar designs can be made to order at the same price.

And yet more doves !

I know this is becoming a bit of an obsession but can I help it? Here I have some more doves all slightly, and one very, different from the last..Above one is the biggest 18cm tall, it hangs on a nylon thread and spins in the breeze. Slightly trickier to make and therefore slightly more expensive these are about to be launched on my website at 10 Sterling each although post and packing will still be 2.50 sterling.

Each of the other Doves are roughly 8cm wide and hand made and glazed to order with a choice of an incised Heart design as above or a raised Heart design as below.

You can choose whatever colour you like to suit your colour scheme and all come on matching ribbons . Price 5.50 sterling plus 2.50 postage and packing. I also do these doves with birth dates and names on for new babies. Email me if you are interested..

Doves seek drier ground..

New homes wanted for understated and housetrained doves. 8.5cm wide-ish, handmade in clay and majolica glazed in white, painted with a Scandinavian inspired design in dusky pink, blue, lilac and due to popular demand...red, all hanging on a matching gingham ribbon and very possibly any other colour you fancy wihtin reason. Blow the olive branch, if it continues to rain without abating for much longer, this item will soon be available wearing wellingtons and carying a minature umbrella.

Price 5.50 pounds plus 2.50 sterling postage( still unable to trace sterling symbol on French keyboard) to anywhere in Europe.

All creatures Great and Small....

When I was a small person I used to spend many a happy hour making figures out of local clay on the beach and leaving them to dry in the sun, ruining countless swimsuits and other items of clothing in the process with ingrained clay whilst my mother sat on the sand and read ( did you hear that dearest children I used to let MY Mother, sit ,undisturbed, for hours on end, and read) Oh how my mother laughed as she merrily scrubbed the laundry! ( which probably serves her right for leaving me to play in mud whilst she read undisturbed). Alas, I never inherited my Mother's ability to sit and read unmolested and in peace., and I still ruin my clothes with ingrained clay but they now have that extra je ne sais quoi of glaze stains as well ....

And this is how its how they get there...



1. First take a lump of clay, a banding wheel, a variety of odd tools, a pair of clean hands and a cup of coffee. Place lump of clay on wheel., turn it around and around until you can see what it is going to become. Drink coffee, remembering to wipe hands on trousers first. Always remember , oh my best beloveds, that it is no good trying to turn the lump of clay into an elephant if it wants to be a dog. Ignore advise from partner passing through studio, insisting it really should be an elephant . Wipe hands on jumper in order to remove dry clay powder in order not to contaminate wet clay when grabbing lumps of it from clay bag for offspring , who have now discovered my whereabouts and the fact I have clay out and insist , naturally, they must join in.

2. Once I have settled children, thrown cold coffee away and made another, ( having carefully wiped clay on my shirt tails to avoid dirtying kettle) fiddled with clay until it is happy with its shape and made several other small creatures (at demand of your off spring who have completed their works of art in seconds flat and now want me to make something for them) I leave clay figures to dry in warm place away from aforementioned offspring and cats. This is not easy to achieve in an open plan house situated in a zone currently being used by God as a practise run for the second deluge. Wipe hands on trousers again to avoid getting clay finger prints all over house whilst searching for suitable place of safety for drying figures.


3. Once thoroughly dry (takes several days that, which gives me a chance to unsuccessfully shift clay from clothing) I place small creatures in kiln carefully packing them so they don't fall over as they are as fragile as crystal at this stage, and fire to the required temperature remembering to place kiln God on top of kiln and reminding children and their visiting friends , for the hundredth time and in two languages, that they are not allowed to touch it.



4. Have more coffee and pace floor , resisting temptation to open kiln until the temperature inside has fallen to room temperature . Try not to imagine that pieces made by beloved offspring have exploded due to unforeseen air pockets and , in so doing , have shattered the rest of the contents of the kiln ,which comprises several days work and a very special customer order for hand made tiles amongst other bits of bread and butter. I get up several times in the night just to check on the temperature and find a huddle of cats lying under kiln basking in its heat. When I have the big kiln in the barn firing the feral cats think its thier own central heating sytem snuggle up underneath that one too. Think how thrilled the cats proteciton league would be if they knew!

5. Once kiln has dropped its temperature to somewhere cool enough not to shatter its contents once lid is opened, I take a deep breath and open kiln and breathe out with huge sigh of relief, as nothing has exploded and, taking care to not drop now fired bisque pieces and place them somewhere safely away from small boys and cats until they are cool enough to glaze. In theory I should wait until the kiln reaches room temperature before daring to open it but as its so cold at the moment this could take until August.

6. Cover entire kitchen table with bright orange and pink checked cloth so that table will not be ruined by over enthusiastic glazing of youngest offspring. It goes without saying that I have a perfectly adequate studio with a vast table which has a sensible wipe clean surface which I never use, as glazing at the kitchen table is much more fun. Here I can combine it with bright witty conversation from partner, as he replenishes the coffee pot ,and shout maternal advise to boys about not killing each other and getting on and tidying their rooms without having to move , plus of course, make lunch and answer phone and all those trifling multi tasking activities that make being a modern woman such fun!.

7. Having carefully mixed small quantities of glaze, wiping any spillage with my elbow and cleaning my brushes on my sleeve, I remove cats from table and assembled a vast array of paintbrushes ,rags and jars of water , place fired lump of clay (now miraculously transformed into a something which is not an elephant) on to banding wheel and proceed to paint. Our cats like drinking the dirty water in which I have cleaned my brushes and stretching luxuriantly on large sheet of glass on which I have mixed the colours. Now, although a pink and green floral patterned cat may be unusual and even attractive , as I am constantly warning my children, as I lick the brush to get a fine point, glazes are not really meant to be consumed as some contain toxic chemicals such as lead. I am still trying to decide if cats are mad due to licking glazes from their fur or whether they are mad and that is why they do it. I have already established I am un peu loufoque so the effects of long term brush licking are not open to discussion.



The glazing process goes like this. I load my brush and steady my hand then stop to remove cats, break up some territorial fracas in playroom,and let dogs in and then out. I then start again which is why it takes so long. Once I have completed glazing all the animals and figures leave to dry in safe place. for about 24 hours. Clean kitchen of all traces of pottery activities, make snack for hungry offspring and then repeat stages 3 and 4..., making very sure no glaze has sneaked onto bottom of figures otherwise they stick to the shelves ( and when I say stick I mean nothing but breaking them will get them off and then you need to grind shelf down to remove all traces of glaze so next time the glaze does not sneakily re melt and stick anything sitting on it to the shelf , also need to check that none of the pieces are touching each other a they will then stick to each other, and which is why all potters should know how to use an angle grinder)....and then I wait..

This is the worst waiting bit. It takes about 24 hours or longer for the kiln to fire up to the right temperature, then cool down again. With a bisque firing or first fire, if I open the kiln with all its little unglazed bits in before it is really cool no real harm will be down as long as the temperature is below 100 degrees. If I open it too soon after a glaze firing the gentle ting ting ting of crazing can be heard and like Pandora's box once opened it is to late, the harm is done . If the inhabitants of Noah's ark keeping warm in the kiln need a gloss glaze I then have to repeat stage 4 with a gloss glaze....a very messy business for which one should always wear an overall, or not in my case.



And at the end of it all this is what you get...... hopefully..









and finally ,this pair ....





At this stage I should really apologise for the way photos are so badly laid out and for the length of this blog..more like a dissertation really..but I shan't because the layout is blogger's fault as its playing up today and if I am too verbose for you then no one insisted you read what I wrote so you only have yourself to blame.. anyway you have a nice day and I'm off to do what I love best of all playing with clay.. all creatures great and small are of course available for sale via my website..www.unpeuloufoque.com ( oh dear blatant self publicityI shall be shot!!) or rather they will be once I have found time to upload them...

I vant to be alone!!!( please?)

After a month of entertaining itinerant travellers at the table and being chief cook, bottle washer, laundry maid, property finder and agony aunt for more visitors than I care to count, I have an unexpected window in my calendar.

Today's arrival, someone from an old eastern block country which has changed its name so many times we have now lost track of what it is currently called, was due here at 11.am, but is now not materializing until after 2.30 pm . Wonderful news! As although we shall miss their company at lunch it gives me a much appreciated, if brief breathing space, in this months horribly hectic calendar!!

Of course it might have been even better if they had let us know last night, so that I didn't stay up until some ungodly hour preparing a beef stew marinated over night Provencal style in red wine with a twist of orange zest to give it that little zing and so that I did not , bleary eyed and yawning, have to stumble out of bed at some unearthly hour in order to place aforementioned gastronomic fayre in a slow oven at the crack of dawn in order to be free to entertain my guests when they arrived after their journey. But one can not, after all, have everything one's own way, which is why, perhaps instead of being artistically interspersed amongst the text these tiles images and stolidly sitting at the top and refusing to be moved and why the spell check won't work this morning! Ah me!!

Lunch then will be thankfully en famille without the need to speak anything but French and English which will be a blessed relief I can tell you as it has been a little like the United Nations here recently !

One obvious draw back in all this entertaining is that although I love having friends to stay , I have have had little time to do anything other than domestic duties and fulfilling orders for tiles. Frustrating to say the least!

That is however my problem and not my guests and thus , working on the theory that it is better to let it all out in glazes than lose ones decorum and snap like a snarling beast when greeted at 6 am on a clandestine sortie to the kitchen in search of a peaceful cup of tea only to find ones guests are already there before you and desperate to discuss life the universe and everything, these 3 tile panels came into being!

They are not on my website yet as I haven't had time to go and update it and don't want to add anything else until my patient translator can find time in her hectic calendar to finish checking my French spelling and grammar ! However until such time as I do, if you feel the need to tell the world you too are not the social being people think you are the tiles are available direct from me at 25 pounds sterling for each 4 tile panel plus post and packing. Bespoke character tiles with your own message can be made on request...

So sorry for t eh lack of contact, sorry for the speed of throwing this together and the inevitable mistake in it as a result I live in hope that normal services will be resumed as soon as possible! Now perhaps that would make a good title for a tile panel...hmmmm I can see it now.......