Sunday 27 April 2014

Green Men

The start of the fair season and a website enquiry that we had last week, has got me thinking about Green Men. We started making Green Men a few years ago, and they have become a stable presence in our product range.


The nice thing about the green men, is that they all seem to end up with their own personalities! The potter makes them free hand, and they are a favourite demonstration make with the fair attendees as they like watching them develop, and often come past several times to see how they end up! I always say (although the potter denies this) that they end up looking happy or grumpy depending on the potters mood (and really moody if the weather is terrible and we are getting cold!!)

The website enquiry we had last week was about if we have ever made Green Women, and the answer is kind of!
The Green Man is a traditional pagan symbol for New life, rebirth and essentially Spring. Adopted as a Christian symbol later on to encourage pagans to convert, the symbol remained that of a Man.

A couple of years ago a lady that I got into discussion with at a craft fair, told me about the mythical Green Lady symbol ( I say mythical as there is almost no information about this available so it is unsure whether this was invented to even things up a bit!)
Certainly the pagans felt women were equal as the god of earth herself is a woman (Mother Nature?)
Anyway I was told that the Green Lady symbol was the opposite to the green Man, so where as he was Spring/Summer she was Autumn/Winter. Based on this information we made this lady.
 
She has Holly leaves instead of the Oak/Vine leaves of the Green Man. We have made a few of these since and they have all found new homes. We currently don't have one, so the potter is under instruction to make a new lady next week at the next fair. I think she needs longer hair though!
 
Why not come along and see how she is looking! Embar Pottery will be at the Weald of Kent Craft and Design show at Penshurst TN11 8DG from the 3rd to the 5th of May.

http://www.thecraftshows.co.uk/kent/spring/

Saturday 12 April 2014

First fair of the season

The first fair of the season started today and the potter looks (cold!) delighted to be photographed. She is using her time at the show productively, demonstrating her craft by making stock for the shows later in the season.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a lovely sunny day, so come and visit us at Framlingham Country Show (Held at Framlingham College, Suffolk, IP13 9EY) We will be there from 10 - 5.


I have taken some pictures of our stand, we usually end up with a reasonably similar layout at all the shows we go to. We have a grid wall which we can use to hang things from like the green men (peeking into the photo below) and our new conical planters (seen in the photo at the bottom).

The photo below shows our new two tier planter (which you got a sneak preview of before we had planted it out a couple of weeks ago) Its looking great with the plants in.


The conical planter is another of our new for 2014 ranges making it debut this weekend, which I will introduce in more detail in due course, indications so far is that these may be popular. The potter is intending to make one of these tomorrow while demonstrating.

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow in the sun (hopefully sun, or at least a little warmer than today!). If you can't make it there are plenty more opportunities to catch up with us this summer, check out where we will be on our webpage.
http://www.embarpottery.co.uk/aboutus.html

Sunday 6 April 2014

Fairy Doors

Next weekend is the first fair we are doing of the year, so we are in full swing getting things ready. It is always chaos getting ready for the first fair of the year, as all the structure for our stand has been in storage since before Christmas. We have to find everything we need, combine it with the new things we have for this year and get it into some sort of order before we set off! I didn't think you would want to see our pile of boxes that is the "progress" for this week so I thought I would show you one of our 2014 lines.

Meet the Fairy Door

These little doors are for putting in a secret place, such as tucked on a skirting board or high on a bookshelf. They are for letting the fairies in and out of your house (connected naturally to the magic fairy kingdom on the otherside!)

This was a concept suggested to the potter at the end of last year, and she fell in love with the idea. All of the doors are different, all based on a arched wooden door (like you would imagine as the entrance to a walled garden) but with different windows and decoration, and in different colours.

We have had a small selection at our unit at Dedham Art and Craft centre for a couple of months, and it seems they are capturing the imagination of the visitors there, so we will be taking them out to the fairs with us as well.