Lets Go Potty
8th February – 31 May 2021:
Join us and Lets Go Potty!
Our online Community Exhibition of Pots with Stories has been a great success. So many people have taken the time to send in pictures of their cherished pieces and share their fascinating stories with us. We would like to thank everybody who has contributed. If you would like to see more click here
Continuing in this vein, and while Julian Richards’ beautiful pottery exhibition is still on display at the museum, we would like to share the “Let’s Go Potty” story with you. You can read about how the Learning Team visited six local schools with Julian Richards and delivered a hands-on Let’s Go Potty experience in the Autumn of 2019. Indeed, some of the pots that the children created are now on display in our special exhibition gallery. Find out more here
We invite you to get creative and make your own pots. Using materials you have to hand, from playdough, papier-mache, clay or using the salt dough recipe provided in the Little Explorers section, go a bit potty yourself… we’d love to see what you’ve made.
Just email a photo of your pot and a brief description of how it was made (max 100 words) to: [email protected]. You can include your name to run alongside it or remain anonymous if you prefer.
The pots, along with a selection made by the children in school, will form a community on-line exhibition #LetsGoPotty
If you don’t want to submit a pot of your own, you can still take part in the exhibition by visiting the us on Facebook, Instagram or twitter and liking and commenting on your favourite images.
This is made with clay from Delph Woods and the knob on the top is from the tree under which the clay was found. Lynne Dinmore
Wonky Pot
This is the wonky pot I made in 2018. We are lucky enough to have a beautiful intact Iron Age pot my amateur archaeologist Grandad unearthed in the 1920s, which I have always loved. I am also a big fan of Bill Crumbleholme’s pots, so this is a shiny wonky tribute to my Grandad and Bill. It often makes people laugh which is a satisfactory side effect I didn’t anticipate when I was making it, but it makes me very happy! Anne Brown
A bowl of Porridge
I always hated porridge until now, but the past winter it’s become my favourite thing, especially with berries! I made my pot using Quaker Jumbo Oats and Tacky glue. I turned a small cooking bowl upside down and covered it in cling film, then I painted it with a layer of glue and layed over one oat at a time so they were next to each other, to cover the entire bowl. Once this was dry I covered it in another thick layer of glue and pressed on a thicker layer of oats. Finally I poured over another thick layer of glue to varnish and seal it all. It took about 2 days to dry before I peeled it off the bowl and pulled off the cling film to let the remaining glue inside dry.
Clay pots made by my daughter at a Pottery Party. Rachel, Museum Staff
David Burns Pot: It is from my “End of the world is nigh-ish” show. It is a white stoneware bowl approx 18″dia and 12″high. It is decorated with a partial clear glaze, copper foil, underglaze colours, enamels and body stains. There are also porcelain flower brooches, bits of dolls’ heads and fossilised shark teeth fired into the work finished after main firing with a low firing mix (sodium silicate )to affix the bronze spiders in place.
Clay pots that had just been fired, made by school children as part of Lets Go Potty
Made by my daughter from salt dough, using instructions on Little Explorer pages. Sharon, Museum Staff