London part II

Community contact. (heh.)

Crazy stuff just happens to me sometimes. Not Doctor Who crazy or Harold Camping Rapture crazy, but crazy enough to make my day, for sure.

On the sixth floor of the V&A (see previous entry) there are probably thousands of ceramic pieces, and there is also a small room off the main gallery, with windows to see into the gallery and to see out over London. It is a lovely room. In the room there was a man, and he had some porcelain vessels next to him, as-yet-unbisqued, and before him was a potter's wheel, where he was trimming one of the vessels. Right there on the top floor of the V&A.

Here he is.

I stood there and took it in for a bit and he saw me and told me to come in, so I did, and we got to talking. He turned out to be an amiable Brit, and it was clear from his pieces that he was good, but not a master potter. He's 57, but he's a student of ceramics at a nearby university, and one of the perks, you might even say THE perk, is that he has his own key to the V&A. He can come in early and stay late, and after hours, and the studio is open to him, and he has access to a kiln. There are about ten students in his program, of all ages and nationalities, though no Americans at present. He said I ought to write to the university and say I was interested in coming for a summer and the chances were good I could come, if I made my case well. I haven't a free summer in the foreseeable future, and you don't get paid, so I'd have to save up for living expenses, but it could happen. So there's a contact I made in the world of ceramics across the pond.