Skip to main content

Arty Places #10 2012 : Clayhouse

Gundaroo NSW : Sally Paskins Store 
Gundaroo, a village about 35km north of Canberra, takes you back in time. Most of the buildings  in the main street of the village are typical of 19th century Australia  - slab huts, wattle and daub, stone and local brick. What a delightful place! Although I lived in Canberra  for over three years, I am embarrassed to admit that I only discovered Gundaroo last week while attending a family wedding. There are  a few arty places in Gundaroo, but I really liked the work of Leanne Percival of Clayhouse and so Clayhouse becomes Arty Place #10 ( most likely the last arty place in this series for 2012). 

 I really like Clayhouse pottery ... I think there is an appealing simplicity and a  trendy cleanness  about the shapes and patterns in a "happy" colour range. 



Clayhouse is very much at home in Sally Paskins Store, a slab hut,  built in 1886 with  kauri floors,  newspaper "wall paper " from the period, and  a brick chimney . 







 Sarah ('Sally') Paskins ( who died in 1892)  was an interesting character who was renowned for keeping  a cockatoo on the counter in the shop. These days, Leanne doesn't have a cockatoo, but her silent guard dogs ( sculptures) are a talking point. While this photo depicts Leanne as rather serious, she is a very friendly, personable, talented  and obliging artist. I enjoyed chatting and learning a little about the history of the building and the area. Thanks, Leanne! 


 I love the little egg cups I bought at Clayhouse, and have some creative plans for them. In the meantime, they have happily settled in with  my egg cup collection. 


When you are next in the area, I hope you will enjoy a visit to Gundaroo, and especially to Clayhouse in Cork Sreet,  Gundaroo or at least visit on Facebook  .  
PS Also recommend the Cork Street Cafe and Grazing  Restaurant - great food! 
Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 27, 2018 at 11:05 AM

    Thanks for showing me my great great grandmother Sarah (sally) Paskins' old shop. It is great to be able to see something still standing and in good use. I seem to always miss out on seeing the real thing as I was also down that way last year and had no idea until research that this is where my gr gr grandmother got to. The extra interior decor from that era was something I can now add to my notes.
    Hope to pass that way, one day!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about my blog post by leaving a comment.Your comment won't appear immediately as comments are verified before publication in an effort to reduce the amount of spam appearing. Anonymous comments will not be published.

Popular posts from this blog

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks ....  The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and  message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or  my husband or from off cuts gifted to us  from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks.   Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt  or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...
3 comments
Read more

Christmas Countdown 25... Christmas Tree #1

Background : It has become a bit of a Christmas tradition for me to write an Advent blog - a series of posts leading into Christmas from 1 December . In the past,  I have featured Christmas characters by the alphabet, all you ever needed to know about Christmas cakes, Christmas Firsts  and  Christmas traditions.  I usually find myself on 30 November, thinking what  to do this year?  However, I've had  the idea of "crazy " Christmas trees in the back of my mind since last year.  So this year, it's about non- traditional, unusual, crazy, weird  Christmas trees.   There will also be a "handmade" element to my posts, so there may even be some links to tutorials or other ideas....  So here we go. Christmas Countdown 25 - 1 December.  Source : https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/455285843573622091 This is the image which started this line of thought....  a yarn bombed, crochet granny square Christmas tree.  I though...
Post a Comment
Read more

Christmas Countdown 4: Turducken

I had always thought that 'turducken' was a very modern dish  - a deboned chicken inside a deboned duck, inside a deboned turkey.  The birds are stuffed inside the gastric cavities and spaces are filled with poultry stuffing. There appear to be a few different earlier versions of this dish . I n his 1807 Almanach des Gourmands, gastronomist Grimod de La Reynière presents his rôti sans pareil ("roast without equal")—a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an ortolan bunting and a garden warbler—although he states that, since similar roasts were produced by ancient Romans, the rôti sans pareil was not entirely novel. The final bird is very small but large enough to just hold an olive; it also suggests that, unlike modern multi-bird roasts, there was no stuffing or other packing placed in between the birds. Gooducken is a goose stuffe...
Post a Comment
Read more