On the tiles in Marrakesh

Carpets drying on the mosque roof top







Abandoned lamps on the road to Marrakesh


I started this long long ago on my return to France after our trip to Morocco but then the Computer God cursed my internet connection and it has sat here dormant and unloved whilst I gave up and sauntered off to play in Italy Greece and various ports in between.





Traditional carved plaster work

I went to Morocco hoping to be inspired by all the ceramics and tiles and wondering if they might in turn influence my own work. In the end, beauteous and abundant though the tiles were, it was the over all colour and designs that captured my imagination not only in the tiles but in every aspect of life there. Everything is so vivid and even the humblest pieces of furniture become a work of art form in themselves covered in traditional Berber designs.



I had planned to write about about how the Spanish and Moorish cultures had influenced ceramic design in Morocco and visa-versa, to recommend the best museums to visit to explore the decorative culture of the area to describe, as many have before, the infinite skill and patience of the craftsmen who spend their days engrossed in the making of the small tiles that when placed together form the Zillij designs which go back centuries and are still sought after the world over... how the skills and tools used have not changed for generations and so much more

In the end pictures speak louder than anything I can say so , instead, here are some photographs of some of the eye catching designs I fell in love with in Morocco. I hope they delight and inspire you too.



Traditional Berber designs on wooden ceilings

Carpets (below)

Putting my cards on the Table

Cards are vexing things. They are expensive and have a short shelf life, when you take them down it seems a shame to throw them away but what else can you do with them? Recycle them perhaps? Put them in a shoe box for later as a reminder then forget them never get them out again until you move house and they become just another bit of clutter? They may look jolly on the dresser for a day, a reminder that someone cared enough to send it to you, but after that how long do you have to keep them on display without people asking what the occassion is and you feeling a rather sad and pathetic prat and saying well yes it was for your birthday and no it was 4 months ago ...?

The French are not, on the whole , terribly taken with the idea of sending greeting cards. Supermarkets stock a few bland and dated offerings, the Maison de presse the odd one or two which are slightly more flamboyant but on the whole you would be pushed to find anything original or different amongst them. Nothing to make the recipient feel you had gone out of your way to find something just for them. Sometmes too, you want to send a card that is a little bit more than jsut a card for occassions when a present might be a little over the top but when something more than a card is called for.

So I put my thinking cap on and decided I'd bridge the gap and do a series of cards with ceramic motifs on them, some on ribbon hangers, some with magnets which can be kept as mementoes once the card has out lived the occassion.

And this is what I came up with....

They seem to have taken off quiet well, the baby cards a popular with th eold fashioned prams in pink blue or yellow, and the rather 1930's suburban villa with its red roof is a hit. The teapots and ladies heads are magnets, and of course there is inevitably a dove.

Each is made from good quality card and each is slightly different . The colours vary and the background pattern is not always the same which gives them an individual and original touch. They come in their own protective cellophane sleeve with an envelope, either white or coloured and left blank for your own message.

I am working on more designs at the moment, a three tier wedding cake in pink and white and a few other trifles are cluttering up my desk.

If you are interested you can find out more via the link below or contact me direct via email.

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

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.