Town mouse on art in the autumn

Clive sniffs the end of the recession at an uplifting art and design show in Mayfair

Town mouse; country life
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(Image credit: Country Life)

It's impossible to be gloomy on a bright autumn day in a tent, and both sunshine and marquee were in Berkeley Square when I visited the Pavilion of Art and Design last week. It was a buoyant show not only because there seemed to be plenty of buyers, although not always British (‘so you still use pounds over here?' asked one American).

There was a wit and joie de vivre to the exhibits, from Jean-Marie Fiori's giant, painted alabaster cockerel's head to Joseph Walsh's rippling furniture, which makes wood seem as fluid as water. I met the ceramicist Kate Malone. I'd been puzzling over the waving green fronds of a very large pottery box.

The lid section turned out to be easy to lift, but I wouldn't risk it myself. Kate mostly makes big pieces, jugs and vases that may be encrusted with fruits, seeds or corals, rounded vegetable forms that cry out to be touched, glazed in intense, eye-ravishing colours.

On some pieces, cooled slowly after firing, crystals have formed in the glaze. Kate spends part of the time in Barcelona, potting; the made pieces are then sent to her ‘ceramic laboratory' in London, where the precisely accurate kilns are unaffected by power cuts. ‘I'm an optimist,' she laughs, when I say that her work cheers me up. Recession? The end must be in sight.

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Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.