N/A

I had the wonderful opportunity to be invited to make a 'Christmas Viral' for the Crafts Council of England having been partially involved in one of their exhibitions called 'Real to Reel' about crafts and film making.

​

They are a fantastic bunch of people and they initially approached me to make a Phonotrope but it occurred to me quite early on that there might be a more exciting thing to experiment with. After all the Phonotrope technique is simply mathematics based on something which revolves and there is a perfectly good 'revolving thing' in the process of making pots...

​

Two very good friends, Roop and Al Johnstone of the most wonderful outfit RAMP Ceramics came to mind to ask whether they would be interested in this mad idea as did a friend, Mike Paterson, who makes exceptionally beautiful documentaries.

As I said to Jill at the Crafts Council, it was a bit of an experiment and to be honest it was only after we left after the first part - when I realised we would have to wait for it to be fired (and all the potential disasters that might happen during that part) that I suddenly thought that it might not actually work! But you have to trust maths (and the skill of Roop and Al to fire things!) and it did, I think.

Hearteningly, compared to the previous year's 'hits' which were around one or two thousand, we managed to reach about 200K in the two weeks running up to Christmas. Ho ho ho.