My mind has really been boggled, this weekend, partly due to some 'blogging' research and realizing I've gone totally off the beaten track, I've been derailed and completely stopped in my tracks. { Side effects of living near railway lines}

If I don't part and post these thoughts they will keep boggling me. The blog was initially intended as a platform for my work and what surrounds me as inspiration. For a true artist that is really everything. Then I got wrapped up with the click of the camera and the click of the mouse and got seriously sucked into a vacuum of blogging addiction and also realizing its one way to confront the 'wet winter blues' and share the 'goings on' in my area, but in a off the beaten track kind of way.

Then friends, that have lived here but moved on to Holland, are visiting at the moment and 5 years are being mind blown in a boggled few hours. Then the inevitable confrontation, how is the pottery/ceramics going?...

Saturday morning visit to the old biscuit mill. http://www.theoldbiscuitmill.co.za/ This place is now really Cape Towns hub of 'communal' activity. You have galleries and shops with the most inspirational local art and its not in a shopping mall.[yippee] And not to mention the neighbourhood market. Its not a flea market and its not entirely a vegetable/fruit type market like you get in Europe. No, its really special, the stallholders are 5 star selected, from yes, a lot of gourmet food and wine and beer tasting to keep the men at bay, while the ladies indulge in queen of tarts, to fun with vintage, lots of design items and organic, organic,organic. [sorry, I,m fired, no snapshots] but check out http://www.skinnylaminx.com/ in her blog under posts of markets, she shows the atmosphere very well.

But my main reason to visit was actually to check out Clementina's new gallery/shop http://www.clementina.co.za/ that she recently opened in this very Biscuit Mill. And my ceramic 'guru' was there herself. To me she is really the most successful ceramic artist in South Africa. Through the years her approach to clay has remained honest and yet fresh regarding form and function and the newly approached application of surface treatment is so uniquely unified that the one cannot be without the other. Not only is she talented but she is the kindest and most generous person; downing her own tools in her hectic schedule to help me figure out the mysteries of my boss, the kiln, and its firings; now that in my books calls for a lot of respect and admiration.

So again the inevitable question, hows the ceramics going? Then..the stop in the tracks,.."Are you ever going back to it?" Did I hesitate, no, just slightly cautiously answered:" I will get back to it."

Clementina has also now recently discovered the 'blog' and I think hers will stay true to ceramics. What also boggled me, was that I noticed the South African Ceramic Artists don't make much use of the Internet let alone blogs, because that's really a great way of interacting, updating, advising etc.and we need that in our isolated clay world, I think.

I must say, I do miss that click clack sound of the temperature controller of my boss, the kiln, who now also has a boss called Eskom/Koeberg [they switch it all off] Green solutions are needed for firing pots.

Anyway, stay on track girl. We wish Clementina all the very best on her new venture, the gallery/shop, where she also showcases other aspiring local ceramic artists and will keep us updated on her new blog.

In my collection, special Clementina tea light bowls, carved porcelain to reveal light through the translucency; with gold lustre, as Johannesburg's 'gold dust' will never really escape us...