Episode 2 Of The Throw Down - Cracking The Bathroom Sink

Episode 2 of the BBC's  Great Pottery Throw Down. Photo from the BBC website

Blimey the nerves! I don’t know how they hack it. It’s bad enough anyway, fretting over what will come out of the kiln after you have lovingly shaped caressed and poured your heart into a piece. Now one everyday slip up and it’s: ‘Chuck ‘em out the door!’

So we’re feeling for the contestants who remain on BBC2s The Great Pottery Throw Down. Judgment came and another brave soul is gone.

Oh no! Nigel come back, we loved your work! What does a crack matter in a basin anyway? I know I’ve been tempted, break something in the bisque firing: fix it with a bit of glaze in the second firing- if you have a BBC show to stay on, what the hell. Episode two gave us all a reminder of why we don’t attempt to make coiled sinks and bathroom ware every day. But now we will, we have to, we’re redoing the bathroom in the studio and have been inspired, again. So, a new project is born for one of our members: Make us a sink as beautiful as Matthew’s swirling green Aztec temple was, and it’s going in. Watch this space folks, I’ll post a picture of the winner.

I knew it would happen. Throwing blindfolded, what a torture. Please Tessa don’t make us do that one too. Good for TV viewing maybe, but I think we’ll skip that one here, not enough blindfolds anyway. What did almost slip past in a twinkling, was the vague nod to clay shrinkage rates which is always a real issue for sink makers and tile makers and in fact anything that requires exact measurements after artesanal work is fired. I was amazed at how many of them managed to slot that copper plug unit into the hole with precision first time of asking. High fives guys.

So, the competition in our own studio has taken place and the pieces inspired by the first episode have been put into the kiln -things here don’t tick over quite as fast they seem to on the telly- and we’re keen to see who’s won the first round; apparently the bowls do have to stack. Good luck guys!

Looking forward to next week’s episode, was that a raku kiln? Can’t wait for that one. Luckily we haven’t got one of those terrifying open-air, where’s-me-eyebrows fire pits yet or lord knows what Ms Barrett could be plotting for us. Also a daily smoke out of the whole of Hackney probably wouldn’t go down at all well with our neighbours.

-- Lewis

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