Richard Scott Blog - 6th April 2025

 

Monday morning, we woke up at Cape Diem Lodge in Green Point, feeling a little odd being away from home, as mentioned last week.

Joanne and I took a walk from the lodge in Green Point to the Waterfront. It’s not often you do tourist stuff in your own back yard. After a “tourist” shopping spree we popped in to see if David was at Marble to try one of his Mocktails.

 

Joanne getting ready for winter trying on the funky fashions.

Another cool jacket at H&M.

On Monday morning, I will admit, it was nice only taking 10 minutes to get Joanne to the office and then 5 more minutes and I was at Mervyn Gers  cleaning my workspace ready for my date with clay. I did pop into SHIFT for a coffee and then FRAMED to catch up with Felly.

 

I convinced the barista to make me a double espresso in a Cappuccino cup. I am not a fan of espresso in a small “espresso“ cup. Mainly because it’s too hot and the Cappuccino cup gives off more aroma.

Meet Felly. Felly was smart enough to invest in a Richard Scott all them years ago.

Felly is responsible for framing all my art at FRAMED in Woodstock.

I had a really really good day as I asked Kola for some advice He got stuck in and showed me where I was going wrong. Such a simple thing in the very beginning. If you don’t do that right; like a school end of year math exam, then it all goes badly wrong if you start the first equation wrong.

Kola showing me how to join two slabs of clay. I’m sure there is a technical term for doing this. I have learnt you cannot say sausage but rather coil when you use a long thin piece of clay to weld two pieces together. 

I was rushing this process, hence the cracks appearing where I join the slabs.

Here I keep the base and joints moist. I learnt on day three that this can also be detrimental as it forms cracks on the base if the clay is kept to wet. The cracks are caused when two slabs are joined in the rolling process. So, I learnt one more secret of working with clay. Hee hee.

Sketches of where I finally want to be. My mom always said my mind is 10 steps ahead of my body.

I managed to get a 4^th vase started and put on a new layer on each of the original three.

 

Then it was time to clean up and head to pick Joanne up and back to Daniel's Lodge in Greenpoint. All of 15 minutes round trip. We did stop at The Curry Club and get some well-deserved take aways, which were devoured back at the lodge.

 

The rest of the afternoon, we chilled on the deck and caught up on our day.

Chilling, and working, in paradise. Like we do in Cape Town.

Before we knew it, it was dark, and we decided to go for a walk along the main drag.

Tuesday was a repeat of Monday. This time only I spent a good hour at SHIFT drinking good coffee and catching up with admin. I then popped in to see Idille and Felly at FRAMED in Woodstock. Quick catch up and then off to Mervyn with lots of clay and clay dust. 

The guys at Mervyn treat me like a BOSS and make me feel so welcome. It makes a big difference when you can just ask for 4 slabs of clay and they arrive quickly and with a smile.

Be like a worker. One of the nice feelings when you clean up after yourself.

White dust everywhere. Nothing a broom and a wet cloth cannot sort out.

The day was long and my feet and back were hurting from standing all day, but I was not complaining. The only difference on Tuesday was we headed home after work, compared to the Lodge.

Me defying the medium. As usual. Clay is meant to be organic, if you know what I mean. Here I am making it geometric.

Sending my wife a pic of me working.

Leftovers from last night's supper from the Curry Club. Nomm nomm curried foraged mushrooms. We met Ron, the owner who styled his curry on a London recipe which he described as an international flavoured Indian styled cuisine. Nonetheless his curry is delicious. Try them, they recently moved to De Waterkant, Cape Town.

No, that’s not me drinking cheap coffee, it’s a nice cup of black Ceylon tea.

Tuesday night was the TV feature of the Wedding. We managed to get a copy as we do not own a TV. LOL.

Here is the TV advert AFTERNOON EXPRESS gave us. Did you see the insert?

Wednesday was once again a clay day. I really wanted to get the hang of the whole process of how clay works and figure out a system to which I can work.

Joanne needed the car to take Mrs S to Sea Point for her weekly shopping spree, so she dropped me off at Mervyn nice and early, like 7am.

Wednesday was my third day on the trot doing the clay vases. I got in so early that everyone was commenting on my arrival time. Seems like everyone at Mervyn Gers gets in at like 6-7am in the morning. Dedicated.

It was awesome to get in eight hours of work. There were a few cracks in the one piece, which was annoying, but Kola showed me how to fix them.

Designing the position of the girls on the new graffiti girl artworks.

 

Thursday I was planning on going to Hermanus to do an installation. Something told me in the middle of the night that those plans were gonna change. I had already planned it with Angelique the day before and even drive to Chad to collect the Caddy to do the delivery myself.

Day 3. Experimenting with this piece and the different parts of it at different drying stages. Quite an art just calculating the drying times of the clay.

Ta Daaaaaa

So, the plan was to leave at 9am. Frans came in and then I got the call from Angelique that we were gonna go in on Monday as she was not well, and we could only travel with two peeps in the Caddy.

So, I got stuck into signing the new Graffiti Artworks and paid some bills.

I had the Mervyn Gers Clay bug in me, and I managed to wangle and convince myself that I needed to go, so I did. I am glad I did, and it was the cherry on the cake for me.

I currently have four vases on the go, and all are at four different stages. I am really enjoying the time and process. The process I am following is so “Anti-Clay” style I.E. Sculpting and playing with the clay, as I try and square everything up, Richard Scott Style. Weirdly enough it only come together when I add clay here and there like a sculpture.

Friday I got stuck into the studio and signed 5 new works on paper. I also painted on a few bags lying around the studio. From a SHELFLIFE carry bag to an iStore one.

This piece is 2m x 1m (200 x 100cm). It is Graffiti Spray paint on Tyvek paper. The piece is about women and their conversations and and and. 

You make up your story in your mind. Titled "be!" refers to the Mandy on the far left who chooses just to be. 

Zoom Zoom on Mandy.

Adding an Ana on top of a sprayed Uma. Not many people know that Uma is actually the same image as Ana, only from the back :)

Adding value to an item that would of become landfill.

This is a piece I did on an iStore bag we got last week at the Waterfront when Joanne and I bought some new cables. You know, the ones that magically disappear all the time. Like those odd socks in the washing machine.

I decided to put on a picture of Abby Dowse. I did some concept drawings for her in 2018. The idea was to tie in Apple and and and.

The photos are on my Instagram feed.

Joanne and I also managed to buy our tickets to UK and Germany in May, with a touch of Switzerland and Italy to celebrate our honeymoon a little.

The kids were home for the long weekend. Well, it was a long week/weekend for them all as they were on Uni holidays, so we sat up to 9pm and chilled and caught up with them.

Saturday felt like a Sunday as Joanne worked from home Friday. It always feels that way. It’s a nice feeling.

We went for a nice road run and had a late breakfast on the deck as we did spend most of the morning with VISA’s and and and. You know the stuff you need to get together before you go on a trip overseas.

I also got stuck into my LUNO account monitoring my Crypto. It seems Trump and his tariffs are not only on everyone lips, but also on the ears of the Crypto investors.

After breakfast we popped out to Butternut in Paarl to get our monthly stash of Macadamia milk and the likes.

It was a nice drive and then lunch at home and some more admin etc. I used the time to catch up on my blog. Right here right now, Saturday afternoon 5^th of April at 16h54.

And were off. Tomato foraging.

Peek a boo. Loving the different colours.

Angelina was fascinated by the different types of tomatoes. Small and Large.

Good feeling to breed earth worms. We have six large stations naturally breeding off Kitchen scraps. Then the worms can freely exit the pots into the garden.

Our Haul about to go into the oven to be roasted for Tomato soup.

All ready and roasted for the blender and then the pot for some extra spices and herbs to make a Nomm Nomm Baby Tomato soup.

I can hear the microwave going in the background as Joanne defrosted the food and I am gonna see if I can change our seats on the flights.

The house was quite Saturday evening as Angelina was out with her friends and Dean and Daniella were studying.

Joanne and I caught up a bit on our travels and then watched a movie.

Sunday I was up at 6am. Joanne was on a mission to investigate the Almond/Plant based market to invest some time and energy into. So, we trawled the web and found some interesting information on Almond farming and the likes.

After an intense research session, we were on the beach running. Then we potted around and ticked off boxes around the house. Ironing, prepping the banking/admin for Monday, doing some prints, washing my backpack, laundry, dustbin, etc etc etc and also filing of invoices and slips, creating PDF's for Joanne and more.

I can hear Joanne and the kids cleaning up and doing dishes so, it's 11.47am and time for a cup of tea, and time to go down to the studio and plan my week. 

Blended and ready to add in fresh basil. Spot Joanne proofreading the blog on the right. Hee hee.

All ready to go in the pots my Uncle Ken and Aunt Julia and Dubai family got Joanne and I for our wedding present. 

 Sunday Supper on the way. Coleslaw.

Thanks for reading and watching.

Until next Sunday.

r  i  c  h  a  r  d