Yesterday I completed a second plate (#3 -- #2 will have to wait until after the weekend), and we managed to get them to Odbald finally. He fired them in the evening and will be picking them up today to take to Birka. Hopefully they both came out okay.

Both are love-themed. Amorial plates were popular in Medieval/Renaissance times, as well as other love tokens.

One is close to being a reproduction -- doing freehand painting makes it a little difficult to do an exact repro, but maybe I'll be able to get closer with underglazes. Odbald gave me overglazes so I could start out doing something closer to painting, I think (what you see for colors is what you get -- with under glazes you have to imagine more). It's in blue and orangy-yellow. A woman holding a goblet with a heart coming out of the bowl part, with a small flame on it and two arrows sticking into it. She's standing/walking between a couple of large, odd-looking bushes. The scene is surrounded by peacock feathers within a border of blue and yellow rings. There's a Italian phrase written next to the lady: El mio core e ferito p- voe (My heart is smitten by you). Faenza ware 1470-1480

The other is not a repro, simply done by an absorption of all the different plates I've looked at over the past year or so. Gold, silver/gray, green and black. A cat and dog rampant regardant with tails crossed (they're both standing on one foot, facing away from each other but looking over their shoulders at each other). They're surrounded by a circle of black and gold acanthus leaves, which are framed by two simple rings of green (although the 2nd ring fought me tooth and nail re: application). Between/above the heads is the popular Latin phrase: Amor Vincit Omnia (Love conquers all). Folks back then had a pretty good sense of humor, and I believe the concept of 'fighting like cats and dogs' goes back a long ways, so it seemed like a fun combination of things to do. That plate is very large and would make a great serving dish. The glazes in this case are lustre glazes, so a bit more metallic and shiny than the usual.

With Valentine's Day coming up, as well as people in serious relationships wishing to express their feelings, I think these two plates could be contenders for uniques gifts. Unfortunately they won't come cheap as they take a while to paint, but we'll see what happens. I think the peacock one would be a natural as a gift for peacockduchess, but I don't even know if she and B will be at Birka, so that's moot at this point. At the very least, I hope people enjoy the eye-candy as they walk through the marketplace today and tomorrow.

Back to activities - we worked on books last night, sorcieredeneige brought by the completed juggling sheep, bookplates were printed/cut/wrapped. This morning, laundry, cut book covers and buttons (fitzw), bookbinding, packing, food shopping, cooking!

Then off to Birka, hopefully leaving here no later than 2pm so we can start setting up before the marketplace opens for business, and check in as well, since I need to setup our room so there's room for my table.

Okay, it isn't a really big revelation, but...

From Aberystwyth and District Archaeological Society web site:

"The raw materials for making a pot consisted of clay, dug from the ground, and water. Clay extraction inevitably left large holes in the surface, and the potters were supposed to fill them in again to prevent people and animals falling down them. Mediaeval court records are full of cases where potters had neglected their responsibility or where they had excavated clay from forbidden areas such as the King's Highway."

So dangerous holes made in the road by potters are.... _POT_HOLES!!!

Nothing too exciting today... scraped loose paint off the now-interior garage wall and around the garage door, and did some puttying of holes and such. fitzw did some as well, and vaccuumed all the little bits up too. Forgot to do laundry, sigh. Wrote people about stuff... did more online research on salt cellars, pottery, beakers, goblets...

Kind of interesting that some glassmakers and ceramicists were trying to make things that looked like porcelain, to compete with imports from China (milky glass and tin-glazing, respectively).

g'night