I I always think about what I might write here in the weeks preceding the deadline, sitting at the dining room table to jot down my musings. This month was much the same as usual, and it was all in my head; stories of my trip to London, the making of the lamp base order and other tales. It was all going to be simple.
Then the world changed, when Russia invaded Ukraine. I will tell you about those things shortly, but I will begin by talking about a Ukrainian potter called Serhiy Dutka.
Serhiy lives in the West of Ukraine, in a village called Rozhniv. He makes the most beautiful sgraffito-decorated slipware pottery, inspired and inf luenced by his home tradition of folk pottery. We connected via Facebook and followed one another’s lives and work, not least because of our common interest in our countries’ historical pottery, in which there are many similar traits and techniques.
Last May, Serhiy invited us to travel to Ukraine to participate in a ceramics festival in Kosiv, a region well known for(sic). How horribly wrong he was.
