New Entries, New Names, And The Old Frustrations

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been going through an index of potters in Traditional English Country Crafts, published in 1975, which as a treasure trove of studio potters and potteries operating in the UK in the 60s and 70s (the Dark Ages for Pottery marks). It’s added some of the missing information on several earlier entries, such as the name John Vergette, who owned Landshipping Pottery, John Joyner at Loddon Pottery, David Maynard and John Holden at St Mary Bourne, and the address of Rick Fletcher’s Pottery in Wales.
It has, however, left me with a frustrating number of new entries on the database with no examples of their pots, such as Daphne and Christopher Wren, potting in Wye near Ashford in Kent, Connie Crampton in Ilminster, John Temple at Bridgnorth Pottery, Priscilla Thoms at Fersfield near Diss, Lucinda Jephson at Gt Dunham near Kings Lynn, Peter Dykes at The Brooklets Cottage Pottery in Tintagel, and Pat Ginks at Ford in Norfolk. Sometimes the names pop up on Town or County groups on Facebook – such as Michael and Anita Orak who ran Portrush Pottery in Northern Ireland, with potter Norman Browne who was employed there in the mid 70s.
When I started this project I toyed with the idea of adding a photo to such entries saying ‘No Image Available’. You may find the odd one still popping up, but I deleted most of them when I decided it would slow the process down too much – there are plenty of potters waiting to go on the database for whom I DO have photos of their pots, even if I don’t always have an example of their mark (these photos are added under ‘other’ on the drop down list of impressed, incised, written, etc).
For the past few months I’ve been adding names from various regional potters associations, so there are a lot of photos of their pots but not of their marks. They are waiting until I can get round the Exhibitions and Potfests with my iphone, or hope I can find their marks on their Facebook, Etsy and Instagram pages (if any potters are reading this, PLEASE put a photo of your mark(s) on your websites). Potters at the Fairs occasionally ask me why I’m photographing the bottoms of their pots; well now you know!
Another reason why I decided against adding a ‘No Image Available’ photo was because there’s nothing more frustrating (for me, at least), than coming across an entry on a pottery website or publication with no examples of their pots. The Museums are notorious for this! Plus, I can sift the database for entries with no photos so I know who to keep an eye out for in the old magazines like Ceramic Review, Crafts, and Pottery Quarterly. It’s a shame, though, because I have some entries with loads of info gleaned from obituaries, etc, which are not visible to the public until one of their pots turns up., eg, George McVitie in Scotland, from the publication mentioned in the opening paragraph. The best thing about getting this far into the project, with almost 9000 names on the database, is being able to spend time hunting down rabbit holes for photos and other details of potters and their lives.