MARY ROSE YOUNG NEWSLETTER December 2023
Come To Our Christmas Show!
The Mary Rose Christmas Exhibition is now on… it’s Monday to Friday 10-6 and the weekend of 16th/17th Dec from 11-5. There will also be an evening session on Saturday 16th Dec from 6pm-9pm to which you are invited. It’s taking place at our Gallery at Oak House GL15 4JQ. This year Mary Rose set aside a couple of weeks to actually make some stunning pieces for her own gallery. She could, of course, make whatever she felt like and many of the pieces have ended up being quite unique and new. Thus far she’s made things with little top hats as the adornment instead of roses or crowns, and there have also been manifestations of little rabbits and mice. There is something that Mary Rose has in common with Christmas and that is JOY
The Humble Mug
There’s a castle in Hay on Wye. This had completely escaped everybody’s attention because that town is so associated with BOOKS that there’s no room for anything else! But the castle has been refurbished and now looks utterly beautiful. To celebrate its opening there’s an exhibition “The Humble Mug” of hand made mugs from a carefully selected group of local makers…including Mary Rose Young. But who is this in the picture? TV personality Kate Humble is an extremely cool person and, partly spurred on by the homonym of her name and the exhibition’s, popped in and chose a couple of pieces to pose for a photo with...didn’t she choose well? Anyway Kate Humble lives pretty close to here too in a lovely Wye Valley farm and we wish her well.
Oooh You Are a Card
We’ve always had Greetings Cards on sale in the gallery, and sadly for them they’ve always been a distant irrelevance to the pottery. But every now and then we can allow them a little newsletter mention. We have curated a new set of 8 cards, most of them new original Mary Rose illustrations full of colour and latent humour. Here, as an example, is her illustration of Lydney Boat House at the Harbour. She deserves an award just for making the place look colourful and jolly, but let’s face, it that’s exactly what she does. The cards are printed on lovely paper and are also embossed (whatever that means). If you are interested I can send you an email with all kinds of details about these whether you’re a store or a private person. Just email me james@maryroseyoung.co.uk
Ding Ding Last Orders For Christmas
I know everybody knows, but orders to our website shop have to be made by Mary Rose once they’re placed. Sometimes this can be done quite quickly but we stipulate 3 weeks in case the piece in question involves a lot of work. But today is December 5th and we are fast approaching “the deadline” for orders that can be delivered by Christmas. Try and order in the next 24 hours… if there will be difficulties I’ll email you after you order and we can compromise on something.
Santa Bring my Table Lamp Back to Me
Two customers made this piece happen. Mary Rose realised it quite brilliantly and at the end of it all we love it. In effect it’s a Multi Flower Studded Vase with a “pedestal” attached to the base of the vase raising it up, and giving it a whole new centre of gravity, sense of importance and stability. I love the way that the light will play down on the top of the vase showing off the spikiness of the attached ceramic flowers and the brilliantly colourful dots. We haven’t yet put it onto the website but you can email us for any more details
The History of Swirls
One of her latest designs and one she particularly loves is “Pastel Swirls” shown in the photo on the left. It’s metamorphosed from an early design also called swirls. Coincidentally in the last couple of weeks she’s had to create a new version of her oldest swirls design with a crow in the foreground for a customer, while at the same time decorating loads of her new pastel swirls. I think the new design has more of the energy of a swirl and the colour and enthusiasm to really make it “move”. The old design is extraordinarily beautiful but somehow slightly less energetic.
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