And that’s just Keith.

Anything can be a farm animal if you try hard enough.

A Farms Race

RAKU! Last year’s was a bit of a dud in that everybody’s finial hanging planters came out burnt and looking more like a medieval pagan weapon of religious importance than something to put your begonias in

and in order to make it up to us, it was a mandatory upping of the adorable animal quota (this statement depends entirely on how you feel about goats and even more specifically how you feel about Dan’s Little Baby Baphomet… we’ll get to him.) The subjects of this year’s Raku Week were farmyard animals, which very quickly became Animals Seen In Vague Adjacency to the Farm… CADI

If you asked me to list farm animals, the Red Kite *might* appear somewhere towards No. 70 – after about 30 species of ornamental show chickens because I once wrote a whole TV segment about poultry beauty contests… allow me to count down my Top 10 Chickens (I’m coming for your gig, MsMojo)

No. 10 – The Malaysian Serama Bantam

no, I won’t do this, I promise.

We were sadly robbed of anyone trying to render a Polish Chicken, which is the best chicken breed

(I thought you said you weren’t going to do this?) but we weren’t completely deprived of poultry as Dave took on the task of making a turkey cock

Sorry Disappointed Rose, I meant Turkey Tom

and he was certainly making life difficult for himself given male turkeys are the farmyard animal with the most appendages since Damien Hirst’s “The Ascension” and he was only making things harder by entrapping himself in his own punishment of Greek myth proportions by individually applying each and every feather and slowly driving himself over the edge of madness

Welcome to The Great Stanford Prison Throwdown!

Dave’s masochism through the medium of feathers did however prove to be the better method as Daniel came up against it with his sprig moulded feathers for his Barn Owl

and it was pretty evident where this was all sadly going to go for Daniel when Keith decided to just roast more owls than Charles Darwin and the Glutton Club ever did

don’t make me write a list of my favourite owls, Keith. I was the Bird Kid at school, I’ll do it.

Over in the four legged corner, we ended up with the biggest Battle of the Goats since the Thrilla In Manilla (I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this statement, what part of me made me think I’m a boxing person?) between Donna and Dan. the former was embracing the cuter side of goats with her Regal Gary as he came to be known

he and Cadi’s Red Kite Ventriloquist act will be going on tour this August

they’re the Morecambe and Wise of the farmland

Dan was taking a different approach and making my very own caprine sleep paralysis demon, which is arguably truer to the spirit of a goat than Donna’s Alan Carr animorph

and if you think putting it through 1000 degree heat in about 20 minutes only pisses it off even more, you are entirely right. And giving it a full scale lobotomy probably didn’t help

and Steven was risking the same process for his Cow Bust, although her lobotomization resulted in more nose licking than unquenchable bloodlust

and Steven was filling his patient with a lot of faith

Top 10 Faces You Don’t Want Your Surgeon To Pull Right Before They Cut Into You, No. 6!

With Dan’s goat being filled with the menace of every single goat that came before it, Jan was having to prepare her alpaca for farmyard fight club

I can relate because I was the alpaca of the schoolyard in that I was 80% hair and would immediately default to spitting if I was threatened. Actually I was probably more of a donkey in that I refused to do anything and mostly ate grass instead of doing physical education

Sophie was the one on Donkey Duty having chosen to base her design on her father’s childhood donkey, Anita. And if anyone is looking for a drag name, Anita Ass is *right* there. (Last night my mum declared her drag name would be Knickerless Cage and I was floored for a full 2 hours.)

Lastly we have Princess whose chosen tenuous farmyard animal was the fox

I’ll allow it purely on the grounds that she allowed us to finally imagine what a fox might look like if you gave it Michaela Coel’s bone structure

absolutely snatched for the Gods, your faves could never. If the whole pottery thing doesn’t work out for Princess, there’s always the LA plastic surgery industry, people would pay $5000 for those cheekbones.

Bird’s The Word

This week it was time for the decoration challenge as the potters were relieved of being shackled to a throwing wheel in complete darkness like one of Jigsaw’s more disappointing traps. Instead they were having to decorate a vase in the style of Jacqui Atkin

who had kindly given up her heavy schedule of awkwardly fondling vases for B-roll footage to come and guest judge the potters on their ornithological efforts

and with the entire British landscape of birds open to the potters (except for them being banned from making Jacqui Atkin say the word “tit”) we did somehow end up with a four robin pile-up between Steven, Princess, Sophie and Jan – the latter of which seems to have mostly come to Throwdown in order to make her Christmas decorations for the year

I’m on to you, Jan. Although, I’m not entirely sure how festive the river of blood down the centre of the vase is, but I don’t know how you celebrate.
Sophie came out top in the Robin stakes with her cute distinctly friend-shaped robin

Princess and Steven both found themselves towards the bottom, saved by the safety buffer of Daniel hopelessly shackling himself to Barn Owls like university-era me to the movie Crimson Peak (I got banned from bringing up Guillermo del Toro in our history of cinema seminars)

Sir, Keith literally stood on a soapbox and called them the The One Show of the bird world (boring but ultimately inoffensive) – how were you expecting this to go? That being said, he was still spared the bottom place as The Danfall continued apace with Dan setting a record for managing to go wrong

rarely do you meet a potter that is stronger when blindfolded.

Dan painting the vase slate grey wasn’t the only issue he faced, most of the potters had easily recognisable birds (it helped that nearly 50% of them were robins) even I, who has made it abundantly clear that 90% of my personality is bird facts, cannot for the life of me work out what Dan’s bird is

it’s like Jared Leto’s Joker in bird form

we live in a society. Apparently he was just possessed by a distinctly evil presence this episode – someone get the man an exorcism before he creates a Haunted Hedgehog House next week

although a tiny little Winchester House for hedgehogs would be the best kind of camp.

With Donna having cemented herself as the Queen of Decorating (MOVE OVER 2001 LINDA BARKER) it was no surprise that she did incredibly well this challenge

I just hope she has a really good lawyer

Jacqui, don’t do it, plagiarism is a hot button issue right now, I will make a 4 hour call-out video if you so much as look at a flying bird

so my To Do List currently stands at: A List of My Top 10 Chickens, A List of my Top 10 Owls and James Somerton (it’s a verb now) Jacqui Atkin.

Donna just missed out on the top spot to Cadi’s very cute little kingfisher

I did however think Dave was robbed of the top spot for his very clever and atmospheric Heron

I’ll get you justice, my new Blog Favourite. I don’t know how and I don’t know when but it will be swift and it will involve the evil entity trapped inside of Dan’s goat.

An Official Jacqui Atkin Approved Bird Vase Ranking
1. Cadi’s Fisher King
2. Donna’s Flying Bird (patent pending)
3. Sophie’s Friend-shaped Robin
4. DAVE WOZZ ROBBED
5. Merry Janmas
6. Princess’s Robin Fairly Good
7. Steven Lost The Robin War
8. Daniel, Other Birds Exist
9. It’s Morbirdin’ Time

Farmageddon

Raku Day! Which is actually just a honeytrap for catching any potential arsonists and Jan walked gleefully into it

but to make sure she didn’t raze Gladstone to the ground, Kevin was back

apparently Rose cannot be trusted with the lives of others, just a heads up to anyone who has her as their emergency contact.

And while we did have a healthy zero causality rate amongst the potters, the same could not said for their farmyard busts – Steven bore the brunt of it with Demi Mooer the cow coming out of the kiln looking a bit like one of those butchery diagram posters

and by the time she had gone through the combustibles process she had well and truly been Damien Hirsted

but I suppose a cow split in twain is truly a demi-mooer

SORRY, IT WAS RIGHT THERE.

The potters did at least have time to play mad scientist and Demi Mooer the Six Million Dollar Heifer was rebuilt – the greatest scientific achievement in farmyard rebiology since Dolly the Sheep

the equator running down her face aside, she’s actually phenomenal and even with the crack I think many a person would buy her in a heartbeat. She has so much character and life in her, which is surprising given what she went through, and there’s just so many really terrific details – the wetness of her tongue, the textures of her fur, the fact she’s apparently converted to Judaism if the yamaka is anything to go by

Moo-zel tov!

Both Princess and Daniel also ran into unfortunate fault lines – the latter of which ended up with more of an “Ow!” than an Owl

it’s still not the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to a barn owl on national television – there was that time one flew into the eaves of a barn on WinterWatch

despite having some pretty obvious build issues, it actually looked really quite lovely

am I potentially glamoured by the crackle glaze and the fact I don’t know anything about raku except the constant threat of an exploding cow? Sure, but I think Daniel managed to capture the softness and ghostliness of a barn owl within a process that is so unpredictable and unforgiving.

As for Princess’s Fox, not to sound like a broken record but… I loved it even if it did look a bit like it had swallowed a whole Pringles can and didn’t want you to know

the colouration and texture is absolute perfection, I perhaps wish there was a little more life in its eyes but eyes are always a tricky spot when it comes to rendering them in clay and glazes, as Cadi’s Red Kite that looks in every direction except directly at you shows

I love her – the colouration is scarily spot on and I would argue it’s probably the most true to life bust we saw this episode and she probably could have had herself another Potter of the Week had the actual sculpt been as ambitious as something like Dave’s Turkey or Donna’s Goat

Donna’s just bloody good isn’t she? Maybe we should tie one of her hands behind her back for a few weeks? She literally could have had Potter of the Week every week so far and I don’t think anyone would have questioned it. Although this time the oversight of Dave placing fifth in the Not-A-Throwdown Throwdown Challenge (we seriously need a proper name for the middle bit, guys) was corrected with his Turkey taking top spot this week

what really helped was the fact Dave’s was the only really colourful piece this episode so it stood out for that as much as for how well built it was – not a single caruncle was lost! Keith wanted more lustre on the feathers, but I think the more matte look helps differentiate each one and allows the thick, throbbing, veiny –

NECK, I WAS GOING TO SAY NECK – stand out.

Keith however was not enthused by the surprise lustre of Dan’s copper oxide anointed goat (I think it makes him look like a Guillermo del Toro movie monster – see, there’s good reason I was banned)

last year Derek’s Ferret stole Mandatory Animal Week because it was such a cute little goofy guy (I’ve met the ferret, it’s the most starstruck I’ve ever been)

and this year, I think Dan’s Malevolent Wartorn Goat has stolen the show purely because it’s terrifying – the moment it emerged from the fire looking like the Balrog he became my Roman Empire

he’s perfect in every single way.
I think I’m “I can fix him”-ing a goat? (Guess who I routinely romance in Stardew Valley…)

On the other end of the Spectrum of “Aww” to “Beast of the 9 Hells” we have Sophie’s Donkey which really made me realise that donkeys basically look like when a dog gets stung by a bee

she perhaps borders on being a bit cartoonish but donkeys in general look a bit like someone drew an unfair caricature of a horse so it’s understandable and not inaccurate by any means.

Lastly we have Jan and her sexy, sexy Alpaca

as an Animal Crossing fan, I have to say it was a bit cathartic to see an alpaca with its head mounted on a spike – YES THAT WAS A THREAT REESE AND CYRUS

the fact that every Pride Month becomes The Heteronormative Alpaca Festival feels like a hate crime. WHERE IS FLICK AND CJ’S WEDDING MONTH, HUH?

Before this recap derails entirely into Content For Nobody (it already did when you started making lists of chickens, babe) Jan’s alpaca was indeed extremely good – much like Daniel she went quite minimal in terms of glazing but it only made her piece that much stronger and more alpaca-y

not to be all Mean Girls Prom Queen about it, but most of the cast this episode could have won Potter of the Week and we could have watched Rose try to create a farmyard totem pole in the Display Room like the world’s most fragile game of Buckaroo.

An Unofficial Raku Bust Ranking
1. Dave’s Veiny Turkey [REDACTED]
2. Donna’s Greatest Of All Time
3. Jan’s Sexy, Sexy Alpaca
4. Cadi’s Kite’s Eyes Follow You Around The Room
5. Steven’s Damien Hirst Impression
6. Welcome to the stage, Miss Anita Ass!
7. Dan’s Grumpiest Of All Time
8. Princess’s Slight Fox Up
9. Daniel’s Barn OW!

I was very glad that despite his heron vase being a little undersold, Dave still came out on top in this episode – I would gladly own both that vase and his varicose turkey

there was a tough decision to be made with the elimination as a few of the potters had had structural shortcomings but ultimately Daniel’s owl had its wings clipped even further

I loved Daniel’s style – everything he made always looked softer than I ever thought clay could look and if you want to see more of his stuff, you can follow him on Instagram at Ceramics.by.Dan!

And so, 8 potters move on to the biggest build of the series (so far, fingers crossed for a bidet) in Garden Week