Let’s all admire the beautiful pottery I’ve bought and validate my spending, shall we?

As you saw in my last post, I held out strong through three pottery stores (four if you count the random super-hippie roadside one we found mid-drive) before giving in to peer pressure.  At the Burleigh factory store I first fell for this peacock pattern in black:

But wanted to mix it up a bit, so in addition to the square-ish bowl I got a tray in red calico:

and three bowls in a different floral pattern in blue.  It took shamefully little arm-twisting from Jason to get me to add a customizable cupcake stand…

Jason: Hey, look!  They have plates you can pick from to make a customized cupcake stand.

Me:

 

Look how pretty it is with my sugar bowl from the Cotswolds!  Now I need to convince my sister to make cupcakes for me to put on it.

But this is not all of my pottery.  Oh, no.  After eating breakfast each morning while admiring Jason’s set of Stephen Pearce’s Shanagarry pottery, I wanted to get my own set.  I headed out to one of Jason’s favorite local stores, twentytwentyone, and picked up a few things for my own kitchen:

How pretty are they?  The terra-cotta is really pretty in person – it almost glows.  Jason and I have discussed extensively how we might get out to Cork to check out the source for these pieces (and by “check out” I of course mean buy all the things).

This is in addition to the small bowls I got at the funky shop across the street (In Residence) from Jason when I first arrived.  No photos of them I’m afraid, since I just wrapped them up in bubble wrap for packing.  They are lovely and simple and definitely not any near as funky and fun as the items featured on the store’s website.

Is it any wonder that when I went to the British Museum yesterday I found myself turning away from the crowds in the Egyptian and Greek statue collections to check out the pottery?  In particular I enjoyed looking at the different animals:

the painting/color techniques:

 

and the lovely shapes:

I also stumbled into the one room with air conditioning (AIR CONDITIONING!  I think I’ve missed you most of all) in the museum, which somehow I hadn’t seen before.  It’s room #1, dedicated to the “collections of the Enlightenment,” which seems to also be the personal collections of the “founders” of the British Museum:

The items were eclectic and reminded me a bit of the Pitt Rivers museum.  Also, ding, ding, ding!

Ceramics!

They were admired, as were the plant collections, the small ring with the incredibly-tiny script of the Lord’s Prayer inscribed on it under the stone, the brightly-colored bird, the busts, and other finds in this room-sized cabinet of curiosities.