master-class

Watching people work can send you to sleep ... bore you to death ...

or it can quite simply be mesmerising.

I got a dose of the latter a few days ago when I attended a Potter's Master Day where a well known potter dropped in for an eagerly awaited master-class.

If - like me - you hadn't heard of Svend Bayer before, he's actually quite a celebrity in pottery circles known for boldly decorated domestic ware and VERY large garden pots.

Born in 1946 in Uganda to Danish parents, Svend studied at Exeter Uni before working at well-known potteries and travelling in the Far East, Asia and the USA. He now lives and works in Devon UK. 

Svend gets VERY excited about building huge woodfiring kilns - one of his kilns turns to ash 5 tons of wood in a single firing - yet is modest about his own talents, the fact that he's renowned and respected, has exhibited widely and been described as one of the most outstanding throwers of our time.

So there he was - the reluctant Master - with his mobile potter's wheel and some hefty lumps of clay ready to show what throwing big pots is all about. Thanks to my friend Louise making sure we got to the venue early, I secured a front row seat and got my nice new camera out ...

And here's my pictorial record of a master at work and an impressive pot in the making ...

Click for slideshow.  

And boy was that thing HEAVY !!!