getting my hands dirty....

Instead of fireworks for Bastille day, myself and 7 girlfriends did pottery. We took advantage of a three day weekend and met up at my friend Anne's parents place about 40 minutes from Caen. They are retired bee keepers hence the sign below for honey /miel.

Anne's parents have several buildings, 

most of them wonderfully resored dating from the mid 1700's. 

Below is the well, 

if only ours at Chenedouit looked so good!

One of the farm buildings has been transformed into Odile's pottery studio. All of the work pictured on the shelves is hers from before being pulled into full time beekeeping with her husband Roger. 

Upstairs from the studio are crates and crates of pottery (found and purchased) with the idea of creating a pottery museum.

Collection of bird's nests and bottles....

And these beauties are vintage bee hives, yes, including the houses.

So being the unrealistic dreamers that we are, 

we paged through books and had all kinds of ideas of what we wanted to make. 

And got to work....first thing first. We weighed out dried pieces or porcelain to be mixed with a percentage of toliet paper and water and left to sit overnight.

This mash below is the poor man's version of 100% porcelain and is easier to work for the first timer. 

So with the porcelain ready for the next day and we got busy throwing, building and getting to know some grey argile clay. 

We also had a press to work with, so we were able to do some printmaking as well. Such the professional set up I tell you. 

We were all tuckered out and called it quits around 7 o'clock, 

headed over to Anne's place for dinner and bed.

 Saturday morning walk back to Anne's parents place across the road. 

And off to work on our porcelain pieces. 

Saturday night was back to Anne's place for a very civilized dinner and drinks. 

Anne is on the left and Stephanie (an artist specializing in porcelain) lives in Nantes.

Sunday afternoon Stephane and Sebastian came for a BBQ. The last time Anne's parents had seen Seb was in the hospital as a newborn, so it was nice that they got a chance to catch up after 12 years. Anyhoo, after the delicious lunch, Seb took advantage of throwing his first ever bowl and finished off the afternoon with four hours of ping pong with the boys. I don't think he had a problem falling asleep that night. 

I had a fantastic weekend, really, really great!

 I am anxious to see the results after the first firing in a few weeks. Then we'll all head back over to glaze them.  Can't wait!