Welcome to our Summer newsletter - it’s time to tell you what’s been going on…
What’s New @ the Bell House Pottery?
by Jim Belben
Raku
Anyone who has watched the Great Pottery Throwdown will have witnessed the excitement of Raku. This ancient Japanese art is famous for its dramatic 'live' outdoor firings with a strong element of surprise.
Well, in July, Raku will come to the Bell House Pottery for the very first time!
We have spaces for 32 students across four courses from beginners to intermediate. The making sessions will be led by Gaby Mlynarczyk who is the latest recruit to our teaching team, then the following weekend the glazing and dramatic outdoor firing will be led by visiting Raku expert Andy Mason. To book your place, please click here.
‘Let’s Clay Together’
From the start, one of the aims of the Pottery was to extend our reach to people who we know would enjoy and benefit from a pottery session but who can’t afford it or don’t yet know the benefits. We feel like we have made significant progress over the past year.
We now offer two half price places for every course which are paid for thanks to the generosity of other students, many of whom give a top-up donation when they place their order.
We are also gradually building links with community organisations who we invite to the pottery for a free ‘Let’s Clay Together’ session. We try to run at least one per term. We have so far hosted two school groups, a Ukrainian youth group, a GP practice, Kingswood Arts, and most recently the Paxton Green Timebank. Next up is to work with Aphasia Reconnect thanks to the introduction made by the Creative Health group.
If you know of a community group whom you think would benefit from ‘Let’s Clay Together’ please email me, [email protected]
Potter-in-residence
Following the success of the artist-in-residence scheme, we are proud to announce our first ever potter-in-residence, Rowena Hamilton from Derbyshire.
Rowena is based in the Peak District in Derbyshire. Since graduating from Clay College in August 2024, she has been making functional and decorative pots on the wheel with some hand-built elements. Her work references archaeology and anthropology.
During her residency she’ll research and develop new shapes, combining forms and textures from basketry and other found materials.
This is particularly exciting because normally our studio would close during August to give the teachers and technicians a break. To see it well used over the summer will be so exciting.
Thanks to everyone in the Bell House community for their incredible support of the Pottery over the past two years. It has been an amazing and rewarding journey to everyone involved and we are very excited about the future.
“Doing our best” in the Bell House Garden “thanks to our volunteers”
by Martin Cook
Image © Sara Lloyd
It's been another successful, fulfilling and encouraging year in the garden at Bell House.
Re-shaping
The pollinator bed planted late last spring is maturing really well. This was funded by a grant from the London Bee Keepers Association (LBKA). We have added plants and developed the new 'Pebble' bed, so the borders along the South wall are shaping up really well. We have planted new climbing roses around the roped terrace, an area which gets lovely late afternoon sun and have been gradually moving existing turf about to reshape the house lawn. The walled garden goes from strength to strength. Herbs particularly seem to thrive in our raised beds.
Native species
We have seen far more butterflies this year, hopefully because of our planting efforts, but definitely helped by the dry, warm early spring. Toads are in the compost again, plenty of newts in the wildlife pond and some plump tadpoles have survived our introduction into the dipping pond. We watched a Sparrowhawk nest and raise a fledgling in one of our oaks last summer. We are gradually seeing a wider range of native species in the meadow beds and the snakes head fritillaries were magnificent. In the Pickwick grassland we have lady's smock appearing.
Garden HQ and Tool Shed
The tool shed is now well stocked and in full use and we are meeting in the beautifully refurbished building, the garden pavilion (which we like to call our HQ! ) but will be used by all projects at Bell House. It’s situated next to the bees.
The polytunnel success
The polytunnel is being well used and we’ve had good early food crops. Bought in plug plants have been successfully grown on and mostly planted out in the garden. On our regular open days, visitor numbers have increased. It's lovely to see people relaxing, sipping coffee and enjoying the garden. Our plant sale offering is gradually improving and brings in welcome income to help with funding and increase the range we can stock.
Volunteers - our not so secret army
We have roughly 60 active volunteers, whose skill set has improved enormously. The social atmosphere is delightful and we can see there is a strong feeling of ownership developing. However, we have realised that as areas are improved, the maintenance effort has to go up enormously! So we would welcome more volunteers please. Landscaping the pottery entrance is the next big project. As well as improving the entrance, it will provide new, dry garden conditions, to broaden our range and habitats.
Our ethos remains the same. To do our best for wildlife, in terms of the variety and quality of habitat and food source we supply. We have added new habitat towers using the old pickwick fence posts and in many other areas. It's been a challenging dry spring and we could really do with some decent rain, but we do our best to give things the conditions they need to thrive, watering deeply when needed and mulching heavily.
Happy gardening all.
The Incidentals - an in-depth look at the exhibition
by Kim Thornton
Each year Bell House opens its doors for the Dulwich Festival Artists’ Open House and invites a team of curators to create a thought-provoking exhibition. The show is a survey of contemporary artists practising and exhibiting in London.
This year’s theme was The Incidentals. The curators, Kim Thornton, Lucy Soni, Min Angel, Sarah Sparkes, Jane Millar, Léonie Cronin, Monika Kita and Lucy Bainbridge approached this in a variety of conceptual ways such as whether any painting brush mark could ever be considered incidental or unimportant, through contemplating the incidental nature of materials or by searching for incidental every day subject matter. In total they invited over 70 artists whose works would contribute to the story each curator wanted to tell.
Bell House welcomed in the region of 2,000 visitors during the two May weekends of the exhibition, some local and some who had travelled to see the work of artists they knew or had discovered on social media. The exhibition was overall very well received.
But of course, everyone evaluates and perceives art differently depending on their own experiences, beliefs, feelings and views. As Whoopi Goldberg said, “Art and life are subjective”. However, it can be interesting to learn more about the thinking behind an artwork as a doorway to a different kind of viewing experience.
In the Wissman Room you may have come across a small, framed photograph of a woman wearing a stole with some kind of fascinator in her hair. On closer inspection the material that these objects are made of becomes apparent. They have been carefully fashioned from tampons, an everyday item used at some point by almost all women around the world, yet something discrete that is not usually made visible.
The work was born from a parliamentary debate in 2015 where the notion of female sanitary products falling within the government’s list of luxury items for tax purposes was discussed. The idea was to impose an additional 5% tax on these “non-essential, luxury” items.
The artist Kim Thornton, who uses humour and rebellion to explore contemporary issues and the politics of being female, decided to make a ‘luxury’ tampon stole and fascinator to comment on this ridiculous idea. The tampons are carefully stitched together with their blue strings pulled from them and knitted into the hairnet or used as tassels for the stole. The staging of the photograph was inspired by an image of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and the framing references postage stamps where royal profiles are commonly placed.
Bringing Poetry to Bell House
by our featured Volunteer: Matthew Otor
A Little Background - Why Poetry?
I grew up always feeling like I had something to say. From as early as I can remember, I'd gather kids in my compound and just talk to them - there was this sense that something inside me was waiting for an outlet. I felt like I had a different opinion or perspective that needed to be shared.
Initially, I thought politics might be my path. I was drawn to how members of parliament could make their words carry such weight and meaning. However, when I stumbled upon spoken word poetry on YouTube, I just knew this was what I'd been searching for. It's been a life-altering journey ever since.
Discovering Bell House
I was new in town and actively looking for poetry communities when I found Wendy and Robert's Fringe event on Eventbrite. I thought it would be perfect for me, though I didn't realize the audience for that event was quite mature - everyone was surprised to see me there!
Despite the initial surprise, I had such an amazing time. Right after the event, I had a chat with Angus where I mentioned that I used to host poetry events back in Lagos. He immediately asked me to explore the idea of hosting one at Bell House. And that's how "Poets at Bell House" was born.
The Vision Behind Poets at Bell House
When we started planning, the thinking was simple but ambitious: create a space where poetry could flourish authentically. We wanted to build something that honored both the art form and the community that surrounds it.
Ambitions
We're hoping Poets at Bell House becomes a household poetry event in London - a place where experienced and emerging poets alike can share the same stage and tell their stories unapologetically. Our vision is to create a safe space where poets can express themselves with complete freedom.
We're also focused on increasing our production value and creating much better content that truly befits the amazing poets we host. The dream is to grow into more frequent editions, building a stronger, more vibrant poetry community.
A Personal Favourite
One of my favourite poems I've written is titled "SCUM" - Society Cannot Understand Me. In it, I tell two vivid stories of people in society we would typically consider as lowlife and useless, but I reveal their backstories - showing how they became the "monsters" we all see today.
Poetry allows us to look beyond the surface and find the humanity in everyone's story. That's what we're building at Bell House: a space where every story matters, every voice is heard, and every poem has the power to change someone's day.
Poets at Bell House continues to grow as a vital part of London's creative community, offering a platform for authentic expression and meaningful connection through the power of spoken word.