Springtime on Islay

It is Springtime on Islay

And we are treated to all the delights as springtime on Islay bursts across the farm. The fields are positively bursting with new life, as lambs, and calves can be seen skipping and playing in the late afternoon sun. The sun is shining. The skies and seas are the shimmering with the brightest of blues.

Our cottages and farmhouse accommodation suite have enjoyed a deep spring clean. They are sparkling and ready to welcome you all to enjoy springtime on Islay. And, we too enjoy meeting new guests and welcoming back old friends to enjoy a stay, a relaxing holiday, on our beautiful Islay Farm.

The swallows and the cuckoo have returned over the past few days

and nests are being constructed in the old walls and hedgerows. As springtime on Islay gradually creeps in, leaving the short winter days in the past, the days are stretching. There is a lively buzz and chatter filling the air. It is one of my favourite seasons, but I then do tend to say that at the turn of every season. I just cannot help but fall more in love with every season of every year on this beautiful island. Spring and suddenly the air is filled with the promise of a beautiful summer to come.

Magazine Articles

It was very exciting when a couple of months back, sat working away in the pottery studio, a magazine got in touch with me wanting to ask a few questions for an article they were writing. An article on some of

Islay’s Crafty people

Time for a little happy dance for me then, especially when the initial question was based around one of my favourite things to talk and write about.

The question centred around how Islay inspires my work. For all of you who are familiar with my art designs you will know that it was the island itself that has led me on this amazing creative adventure that is Persabus Pottery today.

My pottery workshop and studio are just across the single-track road from our farmhouse

A beautiful old stone building, nestled beside the Happy Farmer’s big agricultural shed, which now also houses the fabulous Charlotte Hannett jewellery studio and workshop. Do check out her amazing and beautiful designs.

The shed is also home to the pottery’s kilns and is where the magical glazing and firing happens.

The question from the magazine really got me thinking. Appreciating once again the beautiful myriad of colours of this magical island that have led me on the most amazing journey.

Capturing the spirit of island living

Those dramatic skies and moody seascapes, bringing so many colourful shades. The blues, purples, turquoises, and greens. Oranges, browns, pinks, and greys.

Translating those colours, the skies, the landscape, and the seas in all their colours and forms, onto ceramics.

Each piece has its own story to tell

its own special magic, with memories carefully being woven into the artistic designs. Stories of friendships and celebrations, the people, the very community, and centre of island life, captured onto ceramics.

Stories of days spent exploring the craggy hills, a young family in tow, as we went on so many wonderful ‘Bear Hunts’. Through those peaty bogs, and tussocky grasses, tiny feet in tiny wellies, trudging through rough, boggy ground. It wasn’t the first time a welly got sucked into the deep mud and a tiny white socked foot emerged and just carried on walking, sinking into the bogs. Those beautiful weather-beaten rocks providing the perfect backdrop for happy and imaginative play.

There are the beautiful island’s shores, those magnificent coastlines, and seas, leading to tales of the sandy wilderness of beachy days. Wild swims in the refreshing turquoise waters. Floating in the cooling seas with the gentle lapping waves carrying you ever so gently back to the shore.

Then the ferocious storms of winter that transform the island into a wild and beautiful force of nature. The patterns, moodiness, and emotions of the fiercest of days captured through brushing and stippling, as sponges, and brushes add colour and detail to the pieces.

The glazing and firing processes that seal these island visions and memories onto pottery, as the magic unfolds in the kiln, capturing the essence of island life for my lovely customers to use and enjoy. Customers who have kept me going through these incredibly strange times, supporting, and encouraging me.

Taking a breath of the Hebrides into the home.

I am looking forward to welcoming you back…

We have a lovely selection of bisque so why not pop along and collect your own Persabus Pottery Takeaway kit and have some creative fun? We will glaze and fire the finished pieces for you, sealing those lovely memories onto ceramics.

In the meantime you can find read a taster of the article in the Scotland Magazine here

Or why not call in and collect one of our pottery take-away kits for a bit of creative fun

Until next time…