Diary of a Teapot Collector, by Sue Blazye

July 2005 - ‘T-6′ Six teapot designers gather at the Cardew Collectors Day

On the Friday night some of the collectors managed to make it to the barbeque. Paul did a lovely job as chef. Everyone had a good time at the T6 open day. Paul gave the collectors a vote on what colour the final ‘Fairy Infusion’ was going to be.

If you were lucky enough to have a tour of the Design Studio, you got a chance to see the new range of ‘Wallace and Gromit’ items and the newly revamped Nat West pig family that Paul has designed for ‘Enesco’.

Gary Seymour showed his new deco pots and his ‘Morrisey’ head teapot. He also did a special limited edition teapot of a machine gun (this had been hastily adapted from the ‘Morrisey’ pot handle).

28th September 2005 - ‘Totally Teapots’ at Stoke

The next teapot event was in Stoke by Totally Teapots. It was held over 3 days. On Friday, they went on a tour of the Pottery Museum and were fortunate enough to go in the vaults and handle the pots which were not on display. In the evening, we met in the bar for the teapot quiz.

On Saturday, they left early in the morning to take a coach trip to Chester Antique Fair and then onto Haddock Race Meeting for a day at the races.

On Sunday, after breakfast, before leaving for home, we met in the bar for Vince Macdonald to tell us about his plans for the future and we saw the prototypes of the next two pots.

‘40-tea-a-day’ - a coffin with cigarettes on the lid. (A dig a the smokers here!)

and secondly

‘Armour-Sutra’ - a lovely paint job. A cross between Gary’s ‘St. Georg’e’ and Cardew’s ‘Karma Sutra’.

22nd October 2005′ - Gary Seymour at ‘Teapot Island’

Gary Seymour’s open day was held at Teapot Island. The day had a nautical theme because of Trafalgar Day. Gary’s special pot was a fantastic model of ‘Victory’. He has made a coloured version in a 48 edition and a cheaper version in an antique wash in a 48 edition.

Richard Parrington attended Gary’s open day and bought some of his new ‘Mars and Venus’ pots to sell to the collectors. He had reduced the price to £180.00, a big jump from the original £250.00, which I had advised him was too expensive for the market these days. We had the grand opening by Timothy Spall (alias ‘Barry’ off ‘Auf Wiedersehen Pet’) of the Giant Teapot water feature, in which we collected money for the Air Ambulance.

29th October 2005

Lorna Bailey’s open day - Couldn?t attend this because my son ‘Luke’ (the teapot expert) got married today. He took his new wife off on a Caribbean cruise for a week then onto New York to see the sights

2nd November 2005

Bad day for us at Teapot Island. The mains electricity supply exploded and caught the house alight. Luckily I was there and heard the bang.

We have got to have 2 roofs and 3 ceilings replaced, plus lots of personal stuff which was stored in the loft.

Luckily we had all the teapots covered with fire proof Perspex so we have not lost many of these. Although we now have a major job of cleaning them all before we open again in spring next year.

24th October 2005

Had a visit from Roger Michel and his wife. They were on holiday in England from their new home in France.

He is the owner of the lusterware factory. His most popular work was the ‘walking ware’ series and the tumbling clown teapot.

They have started producing pots again in the France studio. The first of which is a family called ‘The Potts Family’. There is mum, dad, girl and boy, and they are all wearing bobble hats. They are only in a white glaze. Therefore quite reasonable.

He is now working on something more ambitious ? three more horses to join the lady squaw and Indian man on horseback, the latter of which is featured on the cover of the Brahmas Book, which was published in 1993.

12th November 2005

Went to Devon for the weekend to attend the Cardew Open Day (even though it had been cancelled due to lack of response).

We all met for dinner on Friday and Saturday at the Passage House Hotel.

Unfortunately we did not get to see Peter Kirvan or Paul Cardew.

2nd and 3rd December 2005

The last event this year is Tony Carter?s open weekend in December.

Hope to meet up with some of you collectors there.