Finally Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen’s meeting with Mary Rose and her gloriously coloured house is to be broadcast on Channel 4 on Election Day, July 4^th. You can even access it this week, just open the Channel 4 player on your smart TV, search Outrageous Homes, select episode 3 and it’s about 13 minutes in (free from this Thursday). It is a really good piece, the TV team seemed to understand Mary Rose and what she’s about and that matters so much when it comes to explaining her life. There’s a good repartee between the two protagonists particularly when they discuss how money used to automatically buy a colourful interior but how times have changed. Even though it’s only a few minutes long they manage to cover so much…it’s simply the best Mary Rose broadcast ever!

The last time we published a newsletter Mary Rose was about to visit the USA…. And, sure as eggs is eggs, she went. Due to some failure of her cell phone provider to allow her to “roam”, she was completely out of contact for the whole 10 days. Maybe that lack of distraction was the key to help her focus on the marvellous enthusiasm of all the great people she met and how to help them create colour and vibrancy in her own inimitable style. The pictures above were taken from all three stores’ sessions and nobody looks too miserable. Mary Rose wanted to say a sincere thank you to everybody she met for being so welcoming and positive, she said she was made to feel like a Rock Star Potter, and if anybody anywhere would like her to host her she is feeling very receptive. She would also love to see photos of your finished pieces   

A Table of Fables

A new one legged occasional table from the hands of Mary Rose! Flamingos make standing on one leg extremely cool, and some people will often stand on one leg whilst filling in a lottery ticket for that extra pinch of superstitious luck. So it’s elegant and it’s lucky which is nice. The original was a special order for a collector in Switzerland so we must thank her for her inventive idea…Mary Rose is particularly fond of this piece already and has made another to show in our gallery. It is three ceramic pieces all held together with a long nut and bolt with a reinforced glass top UV bonded to the leg. It stands 50 inches high and will bring Mary Rose’s unique glamour to unexpected zones of your living space. 

It’s only a couple of months since Mary Rose’s first wine carafe saw the light of day thanks to another customer who had a great idea. Since then it’s been seized upon as a lovely one off jar that offers both practicality as the centrepiece for your dinner time shrine and fantasy decoration that lifts your heart whenever you see it. Her latest versions have a flock of butterflies frozen in time scattering the surface. So if you ever feel nervous you can close your eyes, touch the carafe and find that all the butterflies in your stomach have migrated and materialised in ceramic, and that you are calm as the lazy waters of the River Severn. These four pieces are currently at Miks

There are magazines for every passion your life may contain, and if you visit a museum you can remind yourself quite how many erudite publications there are featuring creative artists and their work. Mary Rose’s latest print appearance may not be in one of those, but Take A Break has one undeniable attraction, it is quite simply the best selling women’s magazine in the UK, and its next competitor only manages to reach about half its circulation. The article is set to say something about Mary Rose’s life of colour and creation, and is based around a lengthy interview with her. It is in Issue 27 which the editors tell me should appear in store on July 4^th, again Election Day and a day on which something happens in America too. Maybe the publishers are trying to suggest to the current government that they too should Take A Break

A New Cakestand....A charming customer of ours down on The Gulf already had a Cup and Saucer and a Cereal Bowl in Mary Rose’s Mixed Pale Rose design….so she sensibly decided to expand her collection somewhat. She asked for 3 plates with holes in the middle to make a cakestand out of, and being somewhat excited about it, we bought a stem and put it together ourselves, and as you can see it’s fabulous. Mary Rose has offered 3 tier cakestands before, mostly with a hint of beanstalk; either with bead coated bendy stems, or with the beanstalk stem being custom made in metal. But she’s never ever made a conventional one, until now. The plates are almost exactly her Dinner Plate, Side Plate and Tea Plate, except that the Side Plate and the Tea Plate have rounded bases since they are not destined to sit on a table. It's about 12 inches high and 11 inches across at the bottom.

Baby Face Vases

How do we read the expressions on peoples’ faces? How can a minor shift in the shape or position of the mouth tap into a whole theory about “what that person must be like”? These of course are Mary Rose’s Baby Face Vases and while her decoration is charmingly upbeat open and friendly, there are clever variations in the expressions which speak volumes about mood. Do we all see the same thing I wonder? Or does one face configuration mean different things to different people. To me one of these ladies has the patience of Job while another looks rather self satisfied... would you attribute those sentiments to the same vases as me? These particular pieces reside at Oxford Floral