Everyone's favourite ceramicist, Ed Walshe*, has an exhibition in the Backstage Theatre in Longford, the opening of which we attended last night.

The pieces are gorgeous, all painstakingly hand burnished with a spoon before being fired in a bin of sawdust and straw, which leaves a smoky unpredictable finish on them and lets you know of the pyromaniacal nature of their maker. Then they are shined up with a beeswax polish.

I love the process, and have helped out with it on occasion. When you use a kiln with ceramics you really don't have the same elemental feeling as setting bins of flammable material alight and waiting to see what the results will look like this time.

No two pots are the same, and the smoke leaves delicate and strange patterns on them.

Anyway, get down and see them all for yourself! And purchase one! Very reasonable with most pots being 25 Euro.

* AKA, Dad.