Christmas confessions of a Mud, Water & Fire man…

This is a cosy Christmas blog post. In fact my family is spread out across the world and we don’t really do Christmas. However living by the sea it’s often good and stormy around December January and so to be sitting by a huge log fire with a nice glass of wine in the hand is a great feeling.

During my life I have planted more than a thousand trees so when I go out with my chainsaw a few times in the winter and lop a few branches off here and there I have a clear conscience for the future of the planet. I usually light a fire with enormous logs when the weather gets cold and keep it glowing non-stop until the spring begins to warm the air.

There are many things about being a potter that I really enjoy. I think a potter could aptly be called a ‘Mud, Water & Fire Man’. I started lighting fires for my parents when I was eight years old and, while I am definitely not a pyromaniac (I don’t fiddle with it the whole time), I really enjoy keeping the home fire burning which is a very basic instinct in me. I very much enjoy every stage of the pottery process. Since I was ten years old we have dug our clay in a very romantic valley by the River Blackwater. At first it was digging by hand… and then god sent the JCB. Saviour of slavery.

When working closely with clay it has a very distinct and satisfying smell (I wish I could think of a kinder word than ‘smell’.) When the clay is won and sitting in a big pile at home it is like a farmer harvesting his crops. I know there is a year’s supply there and I always enjoy the preparation process as the clay becomes finer and then ages. Not until it has aged for many months do I know how good it will be for throwing pots. Usually it is fine, however sometimes nature goes in another direction. Feeling the clay slip in my fingers and watching the shapes grow is extraordinarily satisfying. Then there are the kilns, and each time the pot comes out of a kiln it is reborn. When a pot is finished it has a completely different feel to when it is being lifted, soft and pliable, from the wheel. I suppose because I have worked with wood-fired kilns in France, England and Japan there is a strong emotional connection for me between sitting beside my log fire and quietly thinking and the excitement of when a wood-fired kiln comes up to temperature with a rich harvest inside.

Anyway it’s lovely to sit by a log fire and feel these deep emotions of the earth, the heat and my labour and not be working for a few days.

Have a happy and peaceful holiday…

Stephen

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There is still time to order pottery in time for Christmas delivery to the UK and Ireland – but you’ll need to get your skates on!

Recent Popular Posts:

Terracotta Warrior: How I started my Classic range…

How Shanagarry Pottery began… and how it went black

Why Stephen called his book “Warrior Spirit”

Read more of Stephen’s confessions in his new book, Stephen Pearce: Warrior Spirit – a combined autobiography and 60-year history of Shanagarry Pottery now available with free shipping to Ireland, the UK and the US.

272 pages, over 200 colour photographs by the renowned photographer Kevin Dunne, 24x30cm (coffee table format) and almost 2kg!

Order your copy here.

I am very lucky

I have an acupuncturist, Pierce Hennessy, who loves me very much and constantly has new ideas about holistic health and whenever I visit him I come away walking on air. His latest thing this week is touching my head gently with his fingers and I thought I was in heaven. Then on Sunday I went to my masseur Sean Blake for the first time in months and came away the most enlivened and enriched for a long time. I am so lucky to know these people who do things to me and love me and enrich my life. And I am even luckier than that… So many people are emailing and speaking to me telling me how much they are enjoying my new book Warrior Spirit which I put together with my wife. While I am really excited and happy about the quality and content of the book it never occurred to me that it would touch other people in the way that it does. I suppose in life one of the things that really turns us on is feeling nurtured by other people. For me firstly it was my mother, then girlfriends, and now it seems like almost everybody.

I am a very lucky man.

Popular:

Terracotta Warrior: How I started my Classic range…

How Shanagarry Pottery began… and how it went black

Why Stephen called his book “Warrior Spirit”

The story of Shanagarry Pottery and Stephen’s own adventure, Stephen Pearce: Warrior Spirit, is now available with free shipping to Ireland, the UK and the US.

272 pages, over 200 colour photographs by the renowned photographer Kevin Dunne, 24x30cm (coffee table format) and almost 2kg!

There is still time to order your copy here for Christmas.

How I recognise the truth

In recent years I find in some conversations that my eyes start to moisten and I have a sense that it’s because I am in the middle of the truth. The truth being the reality of what we are, who we are and essentially what is. It usually takes a conversation with another person to put me into that place as normal everyday life seems just like a pebble skimming the surface of a calm lake. Actually living life takes a bit of focus and attention and sifting through the unimportant stuff to get the golden nuggets also takes more focus than I am capable of on a permanent basis.

Here’s the question I’m asking myself today: Is it someone holding out the hand of friendship that touches my heart, or is it when I remember to engage and acknowledge and thank them for their kindness that deep emotions stir inside me. What do you think?

Dinner, Breakfast, Coffee & Tea for less!

The following newsletter was launched on Thurs 7th Nov 2013 at 3pm. It is notoriously difficult to get pretty email newsletters to display properly in a blog post… images suddenly have gaps in them, text is all the wrong size, it generally ends up looking sloppy. One day, when we finally have our army of button and screen magicians working here for us, we’ll have it all working smoothly. Until then, if you would like to see this newsletter as originally intended, click here.

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CLASSIC TERRACOTTA	SHANAGARRY BLACK	INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING

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Celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with our Dinner, Breakfast, Tea and Coffee Services and avail of our special discount now.

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Address: Stephen Pearce, The Old Pottery, Shanagarry, County Cork, Ireland. Telephone: +353 21 4646807 Email: info stephenpearce.com Terms and conditions for discounted Gift Sets: Offer ends 12am (GMT) Sunday November 17 2013. Subject to availability of stock. Stephen Pearce offers cannot be combined.

SMASHING SUNDAY! 30th Sept 2-5pm Shanagarry Showroom

I know I know… Galway and Kilkenny are on! They have no consideration for the important work being done here in Shanagarry 🙂

Anyway, for those of you not watching the hurling there is a great day in store here in Shanagarry.  If you have any old Stephen Pearce pottery that you don’t use anymore – chipped, cracked or in pieces – bring it down to us here at the Showroom on Sunday between 2 and 5pm. You’ll be allowed (yes – imagine!) to smash the old ones into pieces and invest in replacements at a 20% discount!

LOVE IS

Most of the great mystics from every tradition seem to stick with this simple statement and go no further.  The best interpretation I can put on it is that love is a passive context in which stuff happens.  A bit like a big bubble, as in a BIIIIIIIG bubble, which contains the whole universe.  And this invisible quality, a bit like oxygen in the air, we breathe it in continually and if we will stop worrying for a moment and just be present with our self then this wonderful love quality is always part of us.

The importance of sex

Earlier today I wrote about Relationship.  Now it’s the turn of Sex and later in the day I will cover Love.

I have heard it said that sex is very over-rated.  It seems to me that whoever said that is missing the point.  In my life sex has been the most confusing and the most exhilarating of all experiences.  You know when you’re going there with someone new all of the embarrassment and uncertainty and fear, and yet when you have the courage to keep going it is possible to arrive at an amazing place.

Something that always amazes me is how many delicious and beautiful women think that they are overweight.  You don’t take into account those exotic love handles that so excite us men!  In French they are called ‘Poignets d’amour‘, ‘Chichitos‘ in Spanish, and my favourite is the Italian… ‘Maniglie dell’amore‘!

If you simply want to kiss it is ‘Bisou‘ in French, ‘Beso‘ in Spanish and ‘Bacci‘ in Italian.

Now that we are fully blown Europeans it is important that we should be acquainted with these important words.  There are many other exciting possibilities which I will leave til next year.

If life has been kind enough to lead you to other doors that you feel the need to add to this list, please feel free – I’m a great learner.  I look forward to covering Love this afternoon – it should be easier and less embarrassing.

Why do I write such things?  Well I suppose it’s the thrill of going very close to the line.  What line?!  An unspoken line that make a lot of conversation and society really boring.

Red Hot Passion

As a man whose life is driven by various passions I want to add 3 blog posts today on the subject of Love, Relationship and Sex.  So roll up your sleeves and prepare to participate!

I salute and celebrate lovers everywhere.  Whatever the nature of your passion and love I celebrate it with you.  I spend as much time as possible with my masseur who is an incredibly passionate man in terms of the body and spirit and the well-being of everything both on this planet and over the edge.  He has been giving me various crystals and fancy stones for years and I really haven’t related very well to them.  But recently he gave me a huge rock and in the morning I hold it between my hands and feel a connection that I have never felt before which leads me to wonder if our human relationship to trees and rocks is perhaps as profound as our relationship with another human being.  Imagine the simplicity and satisfaction and ease of having a relationship with a rock rather than another human being!  Yeah I know we would miss all those delicious, soft, little bits and bumps but the mental tranquility definitely calls for exploration.

That was all an idea.  The reality is that I am married to an extraordinary woman who is so kind and generous and gentle in all of my blunderings that I can only give thanks for being so lucky.  In a couple of hours when I have regrouped I will take love from a different angle.

Looking forward to meeting you then.

XXXX Stephen

Blasts from the past…

Every so often we do a quick search on the internet for ‘Stephen Pearce Pottery’ or other brand related terms just to see what’s going on out there.  Everytime we do it we seem to unearth something different from the past.

Here are two of today’s offerings that I remember fondly…

 

Architectural Digest Visits Angela Lansbury

The house was designed with the help of Stephen Pearce, a close friend of the actress’s, whose home nearby provided the inspiration for hers.

(AD, June 2007)

 

A postcard from: Stephen Pearce

(Irish Independent, January 2009)

 

Shipping Department Closed Thursday 22 December – Monday 2nd January 2012

We can no longer guarantee delivery for Christmas.

Our last shipping day is Thursday, 22 December.

We will resume shipping again in the New Year on Monday 2nd January 2012.

We wish you a very very Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.

Thank you for your custom.

from us all at

the Stephen Pearce Pottery