Book Review Southern Ceramic Group p31 -p32

Book Review

Basic Pottery Making

Published by Stackpole Books and is available through Search Press. www.searchpress.com T: (0)1892578927 Available from the 31st October. £18.99

If you are looking for a book that covers all the detailed step by step procedures need to successfully throw pottery on a wheel then this is a must to add to your library. Pottery by its very nature is a solitary pursuit so a good reference book detailing all stages of production is a must.

It is clearly written by Mark Fitzgerald with lavish photo’s by Jason Minick.

Southern Ceramic Group Putting on an exhibition

“Pictures at an Exhibition” is Mussorgsky’s 1874 piano suite later orchestrated. “Pots at an Exhibition” 2022 is being prepared by members of the Southern Ceramic Group (SCG) for their annual summer exhibition. No orchestra but there will be plenty of inspiration from more than one hundred and seventy enthusiastic ceramicists potters! - who live and work in the south of England. SCG members share a passion for creating in clay, members as diverse as their creations. Some have spent a lifetime perfecting their craft while others have just begun, after careers ranging from engineering to medicine to dance and teaching. Each year, the SCG hosts exhibitions for work to be viewed and sold. The most important is their

annual, two-week exhibition:

Bishop’s Kitchen in Chichester Cathedral from 30th July until 14th August.

Bishop’s Kitchen is easy to find, right in the city centre, a café on site, history on the doorstep –not to mention the shops and carparks within easy reach. Enter it in your diary.

This year seventy-three members are exhibiting, five for the first time. The exhibition is a wonderful collaborative enterprise - everyone has a part to play. Most exhibitors spend at least a day acting as stewards during the two weeks as well as helping with other aspects of setting up the exhibition.

Work begins six months before the exhibition with the appointment of an exhibition manager who contacts the members to ask if they would like to participate. Members are given a window of time to apply, pay their entry fee to secure their place and specify with which jobs they would be willing to help. Some jobs are more fun than others but all are essential to the efficient running of the show and enhancing visitors’ enjoyment. Here are some of the tasks and teams which exhibitors help with: • Publicity team • Plinth painting team • Printing/Laminating of exhibit labels • Preparing artists’ portfolio folder • Setting up plinths and lights • Curating team to set up the display • Checking in work before the exhibition and checking it out after the exhibition • Organising the private view and providing refreshments • Creating the schedule of members to steward and sell the work • Taking down the plinths and lights at the end of the exhibition • Finance manager ‘It’s a real thrill to have my work sold as the SCG Exhibition. I have been exhibiting there for the past five years and I always like to come up with new work to display.’ Gill Waller

Exhibitors are asked to submit new work rather than resubmit work previously shown at the exhibition. Members can submit up to fifteen items each. Two months before the event, exhibitors must provide good quality publicity photographs for our website and social media. One month before, exhibitors list work they intend to submit together with a description of each piece and its price. 25% of the purchase price is retained by the SCG as commission to cover the exhibition’s costs.

The SCG has Public Liability and Employee Liability insurance. The former basically covers the possibility of claims from members of the public for any damage or injury they might incur during group events. The latter covers the possibility of claims for damage or injury by any employees, volunteers or helpers who are not members of the group but who (during the exhibition or at other times) help the group. The group’s insurance doesn’t provide cover for damage to work – that has to be covered by the individual exhibitors.

The whole enterprise is one of teamwork, collaboration and shared artistic values. There is a deep unity of purpose and community as it comes together

Emerging Potters magazine is published quarterly and can be found on the ISSUU platform.

E: paulbailey123@googlemail.com