Dan is still perfecting the art of making things explode with only his mind.

So… how’ve you been?

Would you believe me if I told you that this is so late because I’ve been desperately trying to determine the scientific taxonomy of Dan’s finale outfit – it’s like a teapot visiting Machu Picchu

No? Ok, we’ll just chalk it up to the feminine urge to form a symbiotic relationship with your bedsheets and the only thing that can break the two of you apart being the desperation to work out who is on the anime body pillow that occasionally appears in your backwards neighbour’s bedroom window.

I’m Gonna Swing From The Chandelier

As ever, the finale is about giving the potters the opportunity to showcase themselves and their journey through the Throwdown and because they already used up the totem pole several series ago, they’ve had to find new and intriguing ways to allow the potters to play jenga with various representations of their hobbies and family members. This time, a galaxy-brained producer came up with the idea of “what if stacking but… upside down!”

granted it all gets a bit The Crucible if you say “the potters will be hanging representations of their family and friends from the ceiling”. So as their farewell to the pottery, our three finalists were making Chandeliers – which does make me excited for what they’ll whip up in the next few series because this definitely feels like the last few baby steps you take to buy time while walking the plank because you know a Great White Memorial Bidet is lurking in the icy depths below.

Each of the chandeliers had to be comprised of three parts: a ceiling rose, a chain cover and a base with the structures telling us about the finalists as people and potters. With only 7 hours to make and refine their chandeliers the potters were all opting to throw their pieces, which the show was mostly using to try to make us believe Donna was in any sort of jeopardy of not winning this

Donna could have turned in the sort of eerily blinking, entirely uncovered lightbulb you find in the average murder house and she still would have won (no offense to Dave or the be-poncho’d Dan)

however this is Donna, so of course she was going all out, as her nearly Keith-sized Vitruvian Chandelier indicates

her chandelier was of course a love letter to Ireland with the twist being a detour through Mexico with her chandelier being inspired by the Mexican Tree of Life candelabras

traditionally they are adorned with little charms and votives called Milagros, which Donna was going to be using as the main nods to her and her family, including their favourite hobby of tortoise vegan fight club – it doesn’t count as encouraging your kids to gamble if the tortoise always wins

“Ok guys, we’re going to need to shoot some very natural b-roll for Donna’s Emotional Family Reel, can you all gather around this tortoise and its salad like it’s ancient Rome and you’re Nero watching the Christians being fed to lions”

I don’t think anything says “I’m back to relative normality” quite like the amount of time spent lovingly making this image and laughing to myself in a Costa.

Like the average Pandora bracelet owner, Donna somewhat overestimated quite what it takes to get enough charms so her plan was to pull it back in the second half with her decorating and glazing abilities.

While Donna had gone the full Michelangelo for her planning process, Dan will always be Dan and thus counts a napkin and a dream as planning

the wildest plot twist this series, other than Dave being Charles II

has been finding out Dan, the man perpetually without a plan, is an engineer. I come from a long line of engineers (I’m not one, I disappointed my dad by making reality TV my entire personality) – our Christmas dinners have Gantt Charts to ensure optimum oven efficiency! Nobody moves without knowing precisely what time the pigs-in-blankets have to go in. Then you have Dan whose entire approach to Pottery Throwdown has been like someone keeping a dream diary where they keep having a recurring nightmare about a toilet with a moustache.

But hey, if it’s not broken don’t fix it! Unless it’s your chandelier, you might want to fix that

after some emergency chandelier pulling

(is that what the kids are calling it now?) Dan was ready to send his chandelier to the drying room – his grand non-plan being to make it upside down, then let it dry before flipping it the right way up – a process he needed help for… Dave was the poor unfortunate soul who ended up having to sweat like a colourblind bomb disposal expert trying to work out which one is the red wire

he’s one day from retirement Dan, don’t do this to him!
Luckily for Dave he gets to finish the series without the crushing guilt of having a hand in an accidental chandelier collapse because by all accounts nothing about this should have ever worked AND YET

nobody was more surprised than Rich

remember kids, always pray to the Kiln Gods and the lesser known minor Drying Room Gods

Parce, Lutum, parce figulu tuo:
ne in aeternum irascaris nobis.

So with Dave now a forever changed man, he could return to his much less extreme chandelier building – his particular effort also being a family tree of sorts

and with Autumnwatch having been cancelled, the schedule will now be filled by Pimp My Tree

they’ll make your sequoia sick, your beech bitchin’ or turn your silver birch into gold! By which I do mean they’ll make it wildly impractical, add a huge spoiler on the back of it and paint it with flame decals. Bring back early 2000s MTV, why is nobody nostalgic for that part of the Y2K experience? You don’t get the belly chains and low-rise jeans without the fish-eyes close-ups of Xzibit.

His family being a mix of Cornish children and a Devonian wife, means his household is the epicentre of the Civil Scone War with Dave being a sort of clotted cream mercenary out for hire

I didn’t realise there even was a centrist option in the Scone/Jam/Cream debate but I can believe it was someone’s dad who proved it to be so.

Facet and Drive

The final Second Challenge of the series was an old fashioned throwdown with the potters having to produce as many faceted bowls as they could in only 20 minutes, Donna of course setting her goals high

meanwhile Dan was having to come face to face with what producing faceted items with a plan looks like

he himself having just created a series of faceted candle holders for his chandelier just because the idea had suddenly possessed him like Pazuzu himself

for ~funsies~.

Dan did of course come out on top having made 7 pretty good faceted bowls

however he did have to be humbled slightly with Keith killing his favourite

Donna and Dave were left to battle it out for second place and it could have easily been a draw given they both made 6 and lost two to Keith’s tyrannical bucket

however Dave finished in third because one his was less of a faceted bowl and more of a faceted doughnut

although I would question the bowlness of everyone’s pieces because the size differentials were WILD to say the least.

Chandelier Bing

Thankfully nobody had to end the series in utter heartbreak as everyone’s chandeliers survived both firings in totality with but a few minor cracks between all the potters – even Donna, which filled Dan with a little too much hope

the immediate meerkat-like stand to attention <3

None of Donna’s cracks turned out to be major and she could happily carry on with her folk art style decoration which, as is expected from Donna, was absolutely perfect – I do wish they’d shot the chandeliers in front of a less busy background though

This was a really nice progression from Donna, a lot of her previous pieces have felt quite serious and formal which has been very impressive, but this has a real charming naiveté to it that I personally prefer. The hanging charms were also all very cute

it would have been lovely if she’d managed to get all of them done but I think we all knew that a 100 piece chandelier in only 7 hours was a case of shooting for the moon and instead hitting the skein of valiant geese. Or however the saying goes.

Having finally learned his lesson from shaving off years of Rich’s life every time he touches a piece of clay, Dan finally brought in a plan

it only took 9.5 episodes and it definitely helped

all hail the OctoDragon! Dan had set himself quite a task with his spiralling film-strip decoration as glazing has been something of a struggle for him in the past, however he was safe this week because the copper oxide was otherwise occupied.

Dan was also finishing the series strongly with his chandelier that had a really soothing organic flow to it

as the judges both noted, the actual build of the chandelier is really impressive and that’s one thing you can’t take away from Dan, he has never played it safe and while it may not always be successful, it’s never been boring. Rich took a little bit of an issue about the central column and the pulled arms not relating to one another which… sure, but that did feel a little bit like finding an issue for the sake of finding an issue.

Lastly we have Dave, whose main narrative for this part of the competition was how wisely he was going to use the brown for his chandelier tree trunk without anyone actually saying “make sure it doesn’t look like an air-cured poo” without saying “make sure it doesn’t look like an air-cured poo”

and thank GOD, Dave succeed in this unspoken mission

the piercing work in the canopy is the standout element to me, had this not been a finale piece, I would have loved to see a whole chandelier featuring that speckled copper oxide and pierced details I think it’s so pretty

But even as is, it has a very whimsical fairytale-esque style to it without being too saccharine and childish. The only issue was the lack of covering on the base which gave a full upskirting to the inner schematics of a chandelier

a very interesting bottom but a little bit of an eyesore when compared to the refinement of the rest of it. Which is also how I describe myself on my dating profile. Get in line, boys.

And that wraps it up for the series, the only thing left to do being to crown the winner, which I think many of us knew was coming. Despite Dave and Dan both turning up excellent pieces in the final, the win very much belonged to Donna who was just a powerhouse of a potter from the very first episode

it’s been a joy to watch her recapturing something they’d pushed to one side and to do it so well – the whole series has meant a lot to me right now as I struggle with my own coulds, woulds and shoulds – I’ll be honest it’s been a little bit why I’ve struggle to recap this series, it always felt a little raw and intimidating. But I think I’ve pulled myself over that hump and going forth I’ll just make sure to be a little more Donna.

And of course a huge congratulations to the runners-up and best boys, Dave and Dan

they, as well as all the potters, have been joys to write about and watch and if you can make it to one of the Craft In Focus fairs that the potters attend this summer say hi to them, I thoroughly recommend doing so, it’s always a good day out and you will inevitably buy some really cool ceramics. Also there’s always lots of very cute dogs.

And of course the only way to end this is with the Alternative Montage!

and that’s it for another superb series! I’m sorry my coverage of it has been a little patchy but I’m proud of myself for still getting this out and not letting it become a passing ship.

And so, one last congratulations to Donna

and good luck to the next batch of potters!