The Great Pottery Throwdown Experience

Being on site at the Gladstone pottery museum so steeped in ceramic history was a real privilege

It was quite emotional to step into the pottery at dawn on the first day. Every brick and chimney oozing history, the smell and feeling being there was quite impactful.

I have made friends for life through this experience all my fellow potters were amazing, so supportive of each other and exceptionally talented.

It was an absolute joy to go through this experience with them.

You can find my fellow potters here:

Andrew Macbean: @andrew_macbean_ceramics

Ed King: www.studiomush.co.uk/

Shanika Yeomans: https://www.instagram.com/shaniyeomans?igsh=MTAzdG5icTR3YjlzaQ==

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Polwarepottery

Daniel

Princess

Cadi

https://linktr.ee/cadi_f

Sophie Wootton:

https://www.sophiewoottondesign.com/

@sophoe.wootton.design

Steven

Dave Short : https://daveshortpottery.bigcartel.com/

@daveshort.pottery

Dan

Donna

Series 7

of The Great Pottery Throwdown

2024

I went from not having stepped foot on a train in 40 years to commuting to Stoke on Trent from South Wales. I saw a lot of pigeons and stood up a great deal between Bristol and Birmingham..good old UK train services.

To just be selected from the thousands of applicants from across the UK was mind-blowing.

As a hobby potter with experience limited to two hours of pottery class per week and only having my own wheel at home in the garden shed for a little over 6 months when I applied, I had no real expectations of even been taken seriously in the application process.

So each step of the way thought 'well that was nice and exciting' but never for a moment thought I would get through. When the invitation came to join the show I was absolutly gobsmacked.

Trailer for the show

It's the most magical time of the year... the start of a brand new series of Throw Down! Join us: 7th January. 7.45pm. Channel 4. | By The Great Pottery Throw DownFacebookIt's the most magical time of the year... the start of a brand new series of Throw Down! Join us: 7th January. 7.45pm. Channel 4.

Week 1: Sunday dinner set

The first weeks challenge was about what your favourite memories were and enjoyed in relation to Sunday roast dinners. My perfect Sunday memories are always of being with family enjoying home grown veg with home cooked meals followed by hours of family fun and laughter, usually incorporating tabletop gaming. When playing table top games with my family that includes our dog Hero who always wanted to get in on the game. So the first chance he gets will sit with us and 'wait his turn' . So he featured highly on the condiment pot, and with paw prints on the plate gravy boat and saucer along with sets of dice from the games we play.

Week one was a little nerve wracking, lots of strange new clays and glazes and cameras at every turn but what a phenomenal experience.

Meeting all of the crew and other potters for the first time was a little overwhelming not to mention the cameras, but very soon the nerves disappeared because we got to work with the clay and relax into our makes. By tea time the crew and all the other potters felt like family and were all so very nice, and you forgot the cameras were even there...You know I did, because I cried happy tears. Quite a lot.

You can see the summary of the first episode here.

To watch the full episode go to the link below:

The Great Pottery Throw Down - Series 7 Episode 1Whose dinner set and identical side plates will get roasted and served?

Week 2: Gluggle Jugs

The focus of this week was to make coiled gluggle jugs dedicated to a personal VIP: Mine were dedicated to my husband Noel, who since lockdown had been quite ill and no longer able to do most things he enjoyed such as writing.

He has carp in our pond at home which he likes to keep an eye on and feed when he is up to going into the garden. So as these are his favourite fish they featured in the design for each jug.

He is a very generous, clever, resourceful, funny and kind person. He has a passion for animal welfare and wildlife like myself (and dragons generally) and is fully supportive of all the mad things I have ever decided to do. Including applying for throwdown. Our prime directive right now is to get him to ‘keep on swimming’ and improve his mobility after his stroke. Hopefully one day he will be well enough to write again.

Noel. P. Morgan: books, biography, latest updateFollow Noel. P. Morgan and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Noel. P. Morgan Author Page.

Week 2 : Gluggle Jugs

What a week:

First learn to coil!

Not having done this previously, building these fish gluggle jugs without a former and without them collapsing was a massive challenge.

When trying to figure out how to do this I would have failed miserably had I not paused to get the towels in off the line...problem solved, external support from pottery towels and pegs from home. And they stayed upright. The towels, pool noodles and balloons held everything together. Happy days. I did not however leave myself enough time to do a decent job of the decorating. But it glugged and splashed Keith in the eye.

Last again in the throwdown challenge: blindfold bud vases: Big tip if you are planning on going on the great pottery throwdown, practice throwing blindfolded before going.

you can see what a mess I made of it via this link:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/315837934156994

This was the week we all started to become GIFs, not sure I knew what one was before this week.

Watch the full episode here:

The Great Pottery Throw Down - Series 7 Episode 2The potters attempt the popular gluggle jug and face a surprise blindfold challenge

Week 3 Staffordshire Flat backs.

What an amazing week this was:

1: Find out what a flatback is?

2: Learn how to slab build? Not done anything like this before!

3: Design two enormous completely hollow, shaped from the inside, pieces depicting your hobbies and passions? That look right and have to be very 3D?

4: Do it in a very limited time frame:

NO PROBLEM

I absolutely loved figuring out this challenge.

I decided to celebrate my love of sewing and the fact that I made my outfits for my other pastimes including playing the part of 'Mrs Christmas' at 'The father Christmas Experience' Brecon for many years before lockdown. Which I loved. Also attending steam punk craft events with my daughter; again before lockdown, for a number of years. I really miss those events and all the wonderful people who took part, so much.

Again it was figuring out how to do it without the whole thing collapsing, as it had to be hollow and no pre shaped formers. Wow. Thank goodness for tea towels and bits of polystyrene and the good old pool noodles, I could shove in and take out as and when I needed my hand in there to push the clay out where it needed to be. Tricky but so much fun.

Week 3 Staffordshire flatbacks had to fit on the mantle and stay upright

So much detail, but again I could have done with another three hours to do a better job on the decorating.

Watch the full episode here :

The Great Pottery Throw Down - Series 7 Episode 3Whose mantlepiece classic will take pride of place, and who will be left on the shelf?

Week 4 Raku Week

This is the week that everyone aims to get to, every single one of us really wanted to have the opportunity to try the Raku Firing: Yet another amazing challenge.

Sculpting with paper clay a farm animal of my choosing. But the clay has to be quite thin and have specific features to allow for the raku glazes to do their thing..

First time using something called paper clay. I loved this stuff and when time allows plan on using it a lot in the future.

We needed to make an armature that was removable that left the sculpture intact at the end. Never done this before but managed to design something that allowed me to wrap newspaper in such a way that it could be unwound easily.

Never sculpted an actual hollow sculpture that needed to look like the real thing before. ( I don't think solid dragons count). So this took a lot of planning and measuring to figure out the relationship between eye distances etc. And this was totally 3D. I loved every second of this challenge and the way it came together. But having never raku'd anything in my life before was sadly lacking in any knowledge of how the glazes actually worked. So put too much of the clear glaze on and didn't quite get the effect I was looking for. But loved Al my alpaca all the same.

What was not so pleasant was the Alpaca hair I added to the cooling box, that acrid smell will stay with me forever, it was even worse than Sophies donkey hair.

Al my Alpaca was a joy to make

I decided to sculpt an Alpaca because I now manage the animal science department at work and can see a need to expand our practical provision and diversify our livestock. So had already been looking at where we might house alpaca. We have a local Alpaca farm my sister visited recently with my great nephew so I had some really good images to work from.

Watch the full episode here

The Great Pottery Throw Down - Series 7 Episode 4Whose animal bust will the judges go wild for and name potter of Raku week?

Week 5 Water feature: Ancient Woodland: my 'Oak so Special': Oak ecosystem based water feature.

I think this was my most favourite week of the series. Possibly because the topic of nature and woodlands in particular is very close to my heart and because the decoration was more in keeping with my own style.

But it was also my overcoming my total fear of throwing big things. This week required us to throw a very large base bowl and two consecutively smaller bowls with internal supports that would stand upright by themselves to allow water to cascade from the top bowl to the middle bowl to the bottom bowl.

So this needed to be completely water tight. No pressure!

Such structural design meant that there was a construction and engineering element to this make too as well as the plumbing.

I chose to have the oak ecosystem on my build with examples of species totally dependant on the oak featured on each level, with the make designed to look like a stack of logs with cut off branches as the 'overflow' from each level.

All three bowls had climbing ivy and mosses with an oak leaf and acorn near the cascade to tie them all together. The walls were scored to look like bark and oxides used to enhance the mark making.

The bottom bowl featured an endangered species of blue ground beetle as well as a hidden fairy door around the back ( for our Tylwyth Teg yn y Coed; woodland fairy folk) , toadstools, ferns and mushrooms you would find on the woodland floor.

The middle bowl featured a treecreeper, bracket mushrooms to represent the mid section of a tree.

The top smallest bowl had two hollow branches balanced on top along with a wood mouse, acorn and oak leaf. Around the side were more at risk species of oak mining pollinator bees, the purple hairstreak butterfly and mosses.

I was amazed and so relived that I had no structural cracks at all and the water flow I set worked beautifully. If you closed your eyes when the water flowed you could almost hear the leaves rustling in the breeze and the birds singing. I think I got the trickle just right. A very happy build.

my favourite build

My little tree creeper..sadly the tip of her beak fell off.

Watch the full episode here:

The Great Pottery Throw Down - Series 7 Episode 5It's Garden Week. Whose water feature will the judges be gushing over?

Week 6: Majolica Tea pots

Well I never thought I would get as far as week 6. So was overjoyed to have the chance to work with a completely new glaze I had never even heard of until this week.

We were tasked to make a novelty tea pot and two matching mugs that fitted the 'set' but that also were designed to trap and capture the 'runny' majolica glazes we were provided with.

As part of my bucket list, was also the desire to learn to dance so in 2014 my daughter and I started attending a folkloric belly dance class in the YMCA Swansea on a Monday evening. We still attend and even get to dance in public when invited to some events.

So I thought I would celebrate my love of the dance in my tea pot and mugs.

I unfortunately had the worst flu during the filming for this episode so much of this had to be made on autopilot. I had planned well and included a lot of little dips and grooves to trap the glazes which worked better than I had hoped.

The teapot was topped with a thrown and hand decorated belly dancer head in a yellow and purple turban, with earrings and a necklace on which I put a lot of layers of the yellow. The mugs were a lovely weight but the teapot a little on the heavy side with the added skirt belt and tassels, so wish I had been well enough to pay more attention to detail.

All credit for this make goes to my amazing LOTUS SISTERS belly dance troupe.

Lotus Sisters Belly Dance CompanyLotus Sisters Belly Dance Company. 270 likes · 1 talking about this. Belly Dance Classes Swansea YMCA, Mondays 6-7pm drills and technique // 7-8pm Choreography and comb

Yet another GIF, teaching Siobhan to shoulder shimmy.

Watch the full episode here:

The Great Pottery Throw Down - Series 7 Episode 6The potters make novelty teapots and majolica mugs. Whose brew will get them through?

Week 7: Abstract light sculptures.

Wow what a challenge this was.

1: Abstract art (not even close to my wheelhouse)

2: Two different clays that must not mix.

3: Work with porcelain (HELP!) Slab build and thrown

4: Use black clay that had to be coiled and have thrown elements.

5: Theme ' the light and dark in your life'

6: Three separate sculptures that will fit around the light to use the light the way you want to illustrate your theme.

I was terrified of this challenge and had to ask Cadi, what was meant by 'abstract'. She was really helpful and has such amazing art knowledge. Each week since week one had brought with it a massive learning opportunity and I think this was my biggest learning curve ever.

This was not very good timing for me during the make because I was waiting for biopsy results so my mind was extremely focused on the dark black clay which I built much larger than intended into a malignant cell with pustules and tendrils probing in-between the two light porcelain sculptures.

It was the morning of the judging for this week when I received the results of the latest biopsy and had the all clear. My relief was huge.

When researching how to slab build with porcelain the results all came back with 'Don't' so I was absolutely delighted that my 'wave of joy' representing the uplifting feeling I get from working with clay and being creative, actually stood up by itself, looked like a wave, had no cracks and reflected the light in the way I wanted so it washed over the intruding black clay which was designed to try and block some light coming through my 'cloud'

The thrown porcelain element was I knew going to be tricky, as I have trouble throwing if not relaxed. So I selected to throw multiple smaller orbs which I formed together as a 'cloud' of family, friends and colleagues who had supported me through the dark. I deliberately left little gaps to allow the light to shine though. Its not my fault they looked like boobs while I was making them. LOL.

Watch the full episode here:

The Great Pottery Throw Down - Series 7 Episode 7The potters create illuminated sculptures. But whose time in the spotlight is up?

Week 8: Quarterfinal; Alternative oil drum firing of a Victorian water filter. Featuring a favoured place/city

Another massive challenge for week eight.

This was so enormous. We were tasked with building a 50cm high Victorian water filter. That would then have an alternate firing in an oil drum! with salt water for glaze? Funnily enough. Not done anything like this before.

As you may have guessed that was going to be my biggest challenge. Mainly because I knew I would l not be able to throw this in one piece it would mean that I would have to throw multiple huge cylinders and join them together to reach the desired height.....HELP!

I selected to celebrate the Gower coast Swansea. This is where after the age of 6 I grew up, so was blessed to spend a great deal of my time in the fresh air, on the beaches, hiking and camping all over the peninsular. These childhood memories and the freedom to explore the natural world, from the ponds on Cefn Bryn to the rock pools in Pwll Du and mumbles head, have been formative in my appreciation for nature and conservation.

My little sheep sprig.

Exploring the Gower PeninsulaAdored by walkers, birdwatchers, sunbathers and surfers. Discover more about Gower in West Wales.

Decoration was also a challenge as we had to make our own sprig moulds.

So, the sprigs I chose to do represented famous Gower geographical landmarks including the worms head, three cliffs bay, and symbolic waves as beach symbols. Also, the wonderful bounty the Gower provides such as cockles and salt marsh lamb

So in between everything else I carved out the Gower map, and key landmarks including worms head and three cliffs bay to add to the side.

These I then covered with plaster to create a mould I could then push the clay into on the day.

The waves, sheep and cockles I bisque fired in clay so that the sprig would be more substantial and long lasting and allow for more detail to come out.

The Gower Peninsular

Worms head Gower

Three cliffs bay Gower

Watch the full episode here:

The Great Pottery Throw Down - Series 7 Episode 8The quarter-finalists make vintage-style water filters fired in their own oil drum kilns

You were such a brilliant part of the Throw Down, Jan. | By The Great Pottery Throw DownFacebookYou were such a brilliant part of the Throw Down, Jan.

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