A little bit from Fiona

The 100 Pots challenged started in a meeting with a bright idea from yours truly. It was a website meeting and we were talking about our website – funny that!

So the issue was – we didn’t have enough people with the IT skills to update the website as volunteers, in the original brief we had planned for a paid for a website editor/manager but SANHS was short of cash so we had to think of a solution. I came up with a sponsored pottery challenge. I thought it would also have the added advantage, if I did it correctly, of highlighting what SANHS owns and what SANHS does and stands for. For example – did you know that many of the artefacts looked after by the South West Heritage Trust are owned by SANHS and that we fund their upkeep? Did you know that the Castle Museum is owned by SANHS? Did you know that, together with SWHT, we own one of the largest collections of pottery in the UK outside the V&A? Did you know that much of the collection is stored in Taunton and that you can get it out if you request it? 

And there is the problem.

Unless you know what is there how can you ask for it? So we want to have our collections available to view, we want a website that champions what we do and helps us to fund our activities but to do this we need someone to manage and edit the website. We want a website that lets you know about the talks and visits we put on and that can help you access them. We want you to be able to see what books we publish and also share what our grants are creating and give you opportunities to apply for them.

So my challenge to myself is to try and raise a bit of money for SANHS by doing what I love – pottery.

So how could I make it a challenge that people would sponsor? Well I have always refused to throw. My father is a brilliant potter and he throws on the wheel. I sculpted figures using a highly grogged clay or paper clay. So the challenge to myself was to learn to throw and then to use the SANHS collections to inspire me. 

If I had known what I know now about the process would I have done it? Yes but it is hard. The first 50 days really were spent learning how to throw and looking for pots that reflected design or decoration. I was not skilled enough to make a pot that I had an idea about at the start of the process. Day 50 I started to be able to think more about what I was able to do and Day 57 I am really looking at designs and finding the process of combining the archaeological with the making interesting.

So in funding me you fund an hour at a time supporting the development of the website so that we can have a website that promotes our activity. Volunteers will post onto it but we need help to edit and manage the boring bits that nobody wants to volunteer for. 

Thank you for sponsoring me and I hope, when you visit the SANHS Website, you will feel inspired, join and fall in love with the collections as I have done.