It’s a damp, misty day as I write this. Looking out and down to where the Black Isle should be across the Moray Firth, there is solid cloud instead. It touches the grass right outside the house; the edges of the neighboring rooftops are softened. A robin chirrups from a fence post, his song reverberating in the heavy air.

A few months ago my husband, Terry, and I moved back to Scotland, up to the Highlands. A place that’s always felt familiar, comfortable, like home. We packed everything up, including my studio, and headed North. The last few months have been busy unpacking and settling in; our weekends spent walking into the Lairig Ghru, through the birchwoods of Badenoch, and up the quartzite slopes around Beinn Eighe. Getting used to the feeling that the places that we used to visit again and again whenever we could, that have always felt like home, finally are.

We knew when we moved that figuring out my studio space would be the most difficult piece to get right. Over the last two years I’ve built up my studio to include a wheel, a kiln, and countless boxes and buckets of materials and glazes. Currently, most of it is sitting in a rural storage unit until I’m able to find my own workshop space. However, I am excited about a community pottery studio that I’ll be able to start working from within the next few weeks. I’ll have my own chunky wooden work surface and access to a wheel and kiln. My hands are missing clay and I can’t wait to get started.

Once we knew we were going to be moving, I worked hard to get as much work through my kiln as I could, not knowing when I’d be back in a cycle of making again. Back-to-back firings for about a month - I pushed it until my elements burned out and I had to swap them for the first time. I didn’t have time to look at and feel the pots as they came out of the kiln - I usually give pots time when I unload them, give them some breathing room on my studio shelves for a few weeks. These went straight into the moving boxes - marked all over with “FRAGILE” in large bolded letters, I taped them up and hoped for the best.

I’ve now unpacked them and they’ve had a couple of months of breathing space on my shelves. Mostly new batches of the Harvest Moon and Birch Collections. These iterations of the two collections are the best I’ve made - the proportions, curves, lines and lift of each piece are where I’ve always wanted them to be. Subtle changes from previous versions from previous versions - each iteration showing where small design changes might be made next. The glazing instructions I’ve written out for each piece are so detailed they now feel more like a spell than a recipe - each, along with the unique firing cycles, have been honed to give the visual and tactile qualities I’ve been chasing since I first started developing these collections. It’s been a joy to spend some time with them after this big move.

These pieces will be available in my shop in November.