Bit rude.

Save The Whales!

Going Ark

Kicking off experimental Bible Week was the main make in which the potters were having to make a ceramic Noah’s Ark toy for a child, thus combining all the unpredictability of a choking hazard with the nerve-racking thrill of a potential breakage for a toy that’s definitely not passing its UK Conformity Assessment. AND YET, somehow they sourced 5 of these things for the example displays

although these obviously weren’t children’s toys because this one appears to have a pair of elephant being hung for their crimes after Noah’s Ark descends into an Animal Farm dictatorship

I did love this challenge idea because there is nothing better in this world than tiny little pottery animals and each potter had to make 5 pairs of them. But also because one of my favourite cartoons as a kid was Noah’s Island in which a polar bear and his animal friends had adventures while steering an island around the Pacific Ocean using a magical volcanic source

and in this essay I will be revealing why Damon Lindelof’s Lost (2004-2010) was an incredibly derivative piece of art.

My ONE disappointment with this challenge was the fact they needlessly specified it had to be for a child because it meant we mostly ended up with cats, dogs and a cow if you were feeling a little exotic. As a once flamingly queer child with a David Attenborough obsession, I YAWNED. Give me an ark of only the gayest animals: Flamingos, Penguins from a Norwegian Zoo, the Giant Squid, Alli the power dressing lesbian alligator from Animal Crossing

and these two dogs who look like they’re the prime suspects in a Knives Out movie

they’re played by Michael Urie and whoever The Wirey Twink du Jour of 2025 is.

Many of the potters were drawing from their own childhood memories so a lot of their figurines were their childhood pets. This did mean you needed enough childhood pets to stretch this concept out, something Jonathan seemed to have slightly overlooked given he made dogs, cats and guinea pigs before he ran out and had to bulk out his line-up for Noah’s Stanford Prison Experiment with adders and cows

I’m curious to know if the adders were part of the original design or if he just made them because he was behind time and you can make a clay snake in 5 seconds flat. Because his passion for this challenge clearly lay more in the building of a Biblically Accurate Queen Mary

but with the trickiness of the ships having to be coil built, I can’t say I blame the potters for starting a competition to find the easiest animal to make out of clay. And there was something very charming about Natalie making the same clay snails that you used to make in nursery school with the questionably coloured playdough

for her ark inspired by her great uncle who would come to do the gardening and force her to be the Red Cross for snails

is there a single person on this planet who didn’t at one point in their childhood own tupperware filled with snails and slowly rotting lettuce? It is a universal human experience. Like the fear response, storytelling or being attracted to Zendaya.

A few of the potters were making things slightly easier for themselves by giving their animals all the same bodies – James being the biggest example of this

I… I just think his choice of shape is just a bit too static. Would I love them as an Animals of Farthing Wood chess set? ABSOLUTELY! But the ark? Beautiful! I love the idea of the portholes being novelty seaside photo booths. I just wish he was giving his animals as much personality because as far as a children’s toy goes, they were leaning a little bit Sad Beige Baby

whereas I think Stephen was doing a better job of the same thing but I think it works better because his animals have limbs

there’s a cute naivety to them that I think any child would find really attractive and fun. My favourite part though is that he went to the length of giving one of each pair a bowtie so you knew which one the boy was but then made two male lions

your secret is safe with me boys! I also don’t know what animal the pale grey one behind them is meant to be, I just know they look like Winslow T. Oddfellow from Catdog

he was my “hear me out” as a child and I will not elaborate on that. The signs I’d have a spectacular mental breakdown when I hit my 30s have been there for a while.

HOWEVER, my absolute favourite animal anyone made was Victor’s orca

Why’s Noah putting an Orca on his ark during a flood? Don’t think about it too hard, how could you resist the urge to protect that creature with your whole life? He’s perfect and belongs in the Pottery Throwdown Hall of Perfect Little Guys alongside Dan’s Horrible Goblin and the Franz Klammer Pepper Pot

the theme of Victor’s ark was Canadian wildlife (the Orca clearly being the result of a moose being too hard to make) so we also had beavers, bears, raccoons and only The Second Most Penisy Looking Birds of the episode

because Diana’s penguins have entered the chat

the way I SCREAMED when the outline of the design sketch appeared looking like a pair of discontented dildos

it was a big week for penis-shaped rocks

the final results do not look nearly as much like phallic bank robbers as the illustration suggests, that’s ENTIRELY the projection of The Completely Uncredited Illustrator. I think it’s Harriet Gray, I know she did everything up until the 2023 but her website is dead, her Instagram a wasteland and her LinkedIn goes cold after that. You’d think on a show celebrating art that an artist or artists would be credited and I wouldn’t have to go all Abby Sciuto in an NCIS hacking scene to find this information out

BUT SURE.

Francesca’s Ark was inspired by her childhood in Kenya where she developed a love for giraffes after visiting a Giraffe Orphanage (sadly not known as a Girorphanage)

the rest of her animals were also Kenyan wildlife including hippos, zebras and a pair of lions conforming to the gender binary (BOOOOOO!)

as well as the second elephant that was going to be thrown overboard this episode

and not even the first elly to be unceremoniously dumped on this show

I’m still so mad that Ellie Taylor did such a good job of filling in for Siobhan for like three quarters of a series and then was just GONE and not even invited back for the Grand Final gathering at Gladstone to see who won????

Lastly we have two very different versions of the farmyard – Imy going for a very classic and child-friendly take that had a very cute cartoonish charm

while Steve, much like many of us, just wanted to get off this planet to start a farming community in space

he said it was inspired by “metal building kits from the 80s” which presumably he means Meccano and couldn’t say that for some reason. And was also presumably banned from mentioning Wallace and Gromit because this orange ark-rocket with animals wearing protective eyewear is very much Biblically Accurate Wallace and Gromit

which is a wonderfully unique take on the challenge.

A Little Bit Pot TT

Continuing Experimental Biblical Week, was a Throwdown Challenge in which the potters had to make the 3 Wise Flower Pots that brought baby Jesus gifts of Frankincense, Myrrh and Gold

or if you’re Jonathan, it was more like The Father, The Son and The Holey Ghost

it is absolutely WILD that he sliced through the bottom of his flower pot with a piano wire like a mafia goon and didn’t come last. But to be fair the judging this episode was a head-scratcher beyond the inherent eroticism of hole making

as the editors took their own piano wire to the critiques, completely deleting Francesca from the judging – they just skip over her

she would like to speak to the manager, please.

Despite Jonathan treating his flower pot like the Parisian aristocracy of the 1790s, the booby prize for this challenge went to Stephen for… putting a MUCH SMALLER hole in his pot saucer – not to use incredibly loaded language during this particularly cursed week but I DEMAND A RECOUNT, WE STORM GLADSTONE AT NOON!

I don’t think he did it on purpose, Keith.

Steve had the opposite problem, having forgotten to put holes in the bottom of his pots – something Hayley was incredibly sympathetic about

but it was Steve who got the last laugh

the top three spots went to James in third who is on the verge of one of these Throwdown Challenges being his 13th reason

babe, it’s only Week 3. You cannot be this broken. This is a Bathroom Week bespoke social-justice-issue-of-your-choice-themed-bidet bit of existentialism.

Diana would ultimately win and is being threatened with a blindfold in future challenges

and Victor came in second, meaning surely nothing bad could possibly happen

MY BEAUTIFUL BOY, JUST LOOK AT THE SUNSET, I’LL MAKE SURE IT’S PAINLESS.

An Official Trio of Flower Pots Ranking:
1. TAKE DIANA’S EYES AWAY
2. The Waltz the Band Played Before The Iceberg Hit
3. James, Fuelled Purely by Depression
4. Siobhan’s Hole In Natalie’s Pot
5. Steve’s Unholey Pots
6. The Ghost of Francesca
7. Hayley’s Holes of Hubris
8. Imy’s Refusal To Care About Second Challenges <3 <3 <3
9. Jonathan’s Garotted Pot
10. Stephen’s Pierced Saucer

Zero Ark Thirty

As their arks returned from Princess’s makeshift shipyard, a few of the arks were at risk of saving nobody in the Genesis Flood with a number of them having some quite serious cracks – namely Victor

however Stephen had the added issue of accidentally turning his ark into an ocean faring mausoleum having had his ark’s lid fuse shut during the biscuit firing

so there was some very delicate naval surgery, of which Imy was not present for having lost her license in the practice of invasive ceramic procedures

it was still a risky move and very much a case of “thoughts and prayers” during the overnight gloss firing

and while I mentally packed the bags of this garden gnome who wished to be a real boy because Siobhan,

asked Stephen to do some hula hooping because they were NOT going to let him get away without getting that footage for their socials

However, as it turns out the Kiln Gods can be persuaded through the medium of artistic circus skills

Ignore the Titanic sinking crack in there, the judges did! But I’m so glad the deck came loose because it’s given me the perfect Congratulations on Your Gender Affirming Surgery Meme

it’s perfect for Stephen’s Ark of Queer Allyship given his homosexual lions, the two bears and definitely not straight bulls

and the giraffe whose wife is wondering why her husband booked this particular cruise

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD, LET HIM LIVE JANICE!

While the kiln took mercy on Stephen, Victor had made the fatal mistake of not being proficient in the hula hoop and so the best he could hope for was that Keith and Rich would respect the accuracy of his animals looking as though they were in fact witnessing a biblical apocalypse

they were probably the most naive animals in terms of sculpt and glaze but I do really love the pair of orcas in their granny flat of a rowboat

NOAH, THAT’S THE OPPOSITE OF HELPING! You’ve just made SeaWorld Ararat.

I did like that Victor’s set at least had a unique identity – nobody else had done any of the animals he’d done which I think he deserves a bit of credit for. Did the ferry and Canadian theme potentially take it a little bit too far away from being identifiable as a Noah’s Ark set? Maybe, I don’t think that’s a bad thing but Francesca’s similar location-specific set somehow managed to come across more Noah’s Ark-y

which is potentially because the animals are more commonly depicted in children’s media relating to Noah’s Ark – WHERE ARE ALL THE BEAVERS? AND ARE THE ORCAS OK? Victor was asking the big questions.

Francesca did have some of my favourite animal pieces though – I think her little pink hippos are just absolutely gorgeous

there was a soft tactileness to all her animals without them feeling too mundane or simple – I honestly don’t think she was praised enough and should have been considered for Potter of the Week but perhaps Keith just standing there and weeping while clutching a pair of tiny incredibly heterosexual lions was praise enough

as they say – show, don’t tell. RELEASE THE FRANCESCA’S POTS CUT.

For the first two weeks of the competition, Imy has been on thin ice and beginning to feel a little bit like an obvious Early Boot™ but she really pulled it back with her Ark Set, which I think honestly best captured the brief of it being a children’s toy – or as much of a children’s toy as boat made of pottery can be (which is to say NOT AT ALL)

I personally don’t vibe with the overt cartooniness of the animals because I’m not 4 years old despite giggling at this sentence for 10 minutes because the word “deck” sounds a bit like “dick”

I do think any child would instantly fall in love with those rabbits – even something as simple as gently folding ovr one of the ears is a nice touch of extra detail that’s easy to overlook. And I think she had the best ark of anyone. Or at least the best Ark That Was Actually An Ark, because undoubtedly Steve’s Martian Farming Society Space Rocket was the probably the best in terms of build and glazing achievement

the whole thing is just gorgeous – he had a minor breakage in the deck which didn’t overly detract from the final product but was reason enough to not give him Potter of the Week which he very likely would’ve if it had been in tact. But I do like it when the first three weeks have different winners, it makes it feel more open. Last year in the first three weeks Donna had won twice and constantly been in the top 3 with Dave so it felt very much like a foregone conclusion as to who would probably win.

Saying that, I think Steve is an easy bet for a spot in the final along with James, providing the judges don’t pull a Michelle Visage and ask him when he’s going to given them a dot-free face because his personal style is so distinctly pristine

it’s another case of it just not being something that appeals to me – I wish the animal pieces had more personality, I’m not sure the tall shape 100% works for all his choices, the dogs? I love a saluki so they can stay. The Bear? It’s giving Rupert from Family Guy and I resent being reminded of the time in my life when I thought Family Guy was funny so consider me triggered

HOWEVER! The interactivity and novelty of the porthole cutouts was really clever and I can easily see a parent and young child having a great time with that. And by “parent and child” I do mean Keith and Richard

fight amongst yourselves as to who the daddy is.

What I think put Natalie over the edge with her set, as opposed to James and Steven’s more finessed sets, was both the emotional connection she had with her set and the fact she’s gone the extra mile by having a few of her animal pieces in different poses

it’s a small thing that just adds that extra bespoke touch to something that’s handmade, which I always thing should be the the Throwdown’s objective in celebrating. Because some of the decorating wasn’t *great* but I will defend this goofy-faced snail with my life

He too shall be added to the Pottery Throwdown Hall Of Little Guys Fame.
But her Ark was also a triumph – the glazing came out stunningly and had a really pleasant storybook feel to it. It was so terribly filmed and photographed though – there is not a single full shot of the whole thing in one piece, so here’s your visual cheeseboard of an ark, piece it together in your mind

I don’t know if I fully agree with Keith that it’s her best work in the Throwdown – purely because I think her Moulin Rouge clock was an S Tier build that got EXTREMELY overlooked. But I did really like her ark.

One of my favourite animal pieces in the whole pottery had to be Hayley’s pair of sheep – one of which had been shorn because Hayley could not be bothered to make enough tiny little bobbles to give it a coat and I have the utmost respect for that decision

it’s a wonderful additional bit of storytelling that again, I think is really important in anything designed for children. But I was also a child that felt severely anxious if I ever had two toys that looked too similar and couldn’t be easily told apart. I’m sure there’s *something* to unpack there but we have to move on to Jonathan’s Ark which had been decked out with a sweet, sweet Frank Frazetta art decal like a van in the 70’s

if you’d told me three orcas would appear in this episode I would not have believed you and here we are, three orcas richer.
Despite Jonathan getting around to doing his animals a little later than everyone else, I do kind of love them and think his cats are a particular triumph

although I do have a personal adoration for the capybara-sized guinea pigs (and I realise that capybaras are already capybara-sized guinea pigs SHUT UP)

the adders that look like someone deflated one of his cats? Perhaps less successful but I like that he at least gave them an interesting shape to make them look less like an afterthought. Something Diana struggled a bit over with her pair of beetles that just fell a little flat (quite literally)

I think given everyone else went all out with their animal sculpts, three of her five animal pairs being flat felt perhaps a little less ambitious? Although the frogs would make a lovely brooch

her elephants were so good though, I think she ended up accidentally selling herself a bit short.

An Unofficial Noah’s Ark Child’s Toy Franking:
1. Charlie’s Angel’srk
2. Steve’s Attempt To Colonise Mars
3. Imy’s Playtime Ark
4. James’s Future Animals of Farthing Wood Chess Set
5. Noah’s Big Gay Ark
6. The Floating Girorphanage
7. Hayley’s One Very Cold Sheep
8. Noah’s Ark if it was the Crazy Wave in a Travelling Fair
9. Noah’s Ark Of Stackable Pancake Animals
10. We’re All Singing “O Canada” As We Sink

This was a challenge in which probably about 7 of the potters could have won and I’d have just said “Yeah, that makes sense!” and while I think it would have been very easy to give it to Steve or James again, I’m glad they used a really strong week to celebrate another potter with Natalie taking the win this week

May she aquacise into Raku Week with pride!

And now we don our mourning veils as I must apologise to sweet baby angel, Victor for dooming him by singling him out as The Blog Favourite

I’m running out of space in the blog fave graveyard – I’m going to stop having to like any of you!

And so, 9 Potters get to become arsonists in Raku Week!