Lets Go Potty!
Our online Community Exhibition of Pots with Stories was a great success. So many people took the time to send in pictures of their favourite pieces and share their stories with us. We would like to thank everybody who has contributed. If you would like to see more click here
The Learning Team visited six local schools with Julian Richards, archaeologist, and delivered a hands-on Let’s Go Potty experience. Find out more here
We invited you to get creative and make your own pots. You could use your choice of materials, from playdough, papier-mache, clay or using the salt dough recipe provided in the Little Explorers section.
The pots, along with a selection made by the children in school, form a community on-line exhibition #LetsGoPotty
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