The Blue Mushrooms Collection

A long journey to a full ceramics collection.

It is almost a miracle as it has been so difficult to stop myself on one project for more than one day! Up to now, I have butterflied from one idea to the other, enjoying the pure joy of learning with every new idea.

Designing the blue mushrooms has taken many attempts and a long journey of small steps, small improvements, tiny details, extra trials, failures and victories.

In May and June 2024, I was invited by the Islanders Youth and Community Centre to lead a short series of ceramics workshops for their afternoon adults club. We made pitch pots which we decorated with homemade underglaze and sgraffito carvings. 

With our newly found skills we decided that our second project would be to create mushrooms and I started designing my own mushrooms with the idea of creating a pleasing shape that was achievable by everyone in the group. we had a lot of fun with this hilarious group of ladies and we were all very proud of the sculptures we had created after just 4 ceramic lessons.

   

A few key design ideas started to grow in my mind and the green grass details were already a key feature of my future mushrooms in my mind.

in the last few years, we have seen the development of the idea of offering water, sometimes sweet or honey water to struggling bees in our gardens. Having finally refurbished our allotment, I was looking for an elegant version of the simple bee rescue stations I had seen in garden centres and decided to investigate the possibility of making mushrooms with a small pool shape top. 

Once these were born, a whole bunch of ideas of shapes and details simply had to be put into action and the whole Blue Ceramic Mushrooms took shape. What an adventure in clay!

Come and see the whole collection displayed on the 19th of July 2025 at the Walled Garden, Chiswell, Portland, DT5 1LZ.