Guldagergaard means 'Golden Acre Farm' .

Some time ago, maybe more than a year, a friend gave me a copy of the poem "Woods beyond a Cornfield' by Stanley Cook (1922-1991). There is an evocative use of the colour gold throughout the poem, and my use of lustre on the 'Manor & Castle' series of pots had reminded him of this.

John Killick describes the poem as "[Cook's] longest poem and his most substantial achievement. The issues are complex: the landscape being described embodies the polarities of peace and violence. The cornfield is idyllic-pastoral; the wood has been witness to a gruesome murder. The poem moves constantly between opposites attempting reconciliation. It moves between memories of the past and knowledge of present realities".

I have waited to really read this poem, to think about why, for me, it connects with the Manor Lodge site and the Manor Estate. Where better to begin to think about this than Golden Acre Farm, the idyllic, pastoral setting I find myself in now. 

Today I began to mix many test glazes for a cornfield yellow that is bright but also brooding.