Kiln Stilts

 

I go to the beach every day it is less than 200 yards from my home. I live north of Edinburgh in a town called Kirkcaldy, where I used to work as an art lecturer before I left to retrain as a children's illustrator. This was a very busy industrial town in the 19th  and early 20th century with a coal mine, lino and linen works, and three potteries to name a few of the industries. I clean the beach every day of its contemporary litter and sometimes I gather its historic midden to.

Normally I leave the kiln stilts choosing instead the patterned ceramics and ginger beer bottles. I also have a love for the many bits of old teapots, particularly the perforated spouts, which I like to write imagined stories of the prior owners and the tales that the teapot overheard.

For some reason I picked up the kiln stilts this week, they are the pieces that you put between pots and kiln to prevent them from sticking. They are like the bones of the old industry and that made me think of fossils and skeletons. 

The older stilts are decorated, from a time when life was still about beauty and less concerned with profit. 

I have allowed myself some play time, I really like making the turtles, the shapes seem to lend themselves to these best.