Steve the Green Man Potter profile picture

Steve the Green Man Potter

Archaeologist, Natural Historian & Potter Extrordinaire!

About Me

I am an archaeologist and potter with a long held deep interest in nature, history, landscape, folklore & music. I have been and am a gardener, a landscape designer, an archaeologist, a landscape historian and I am now the "Green Man", a potter and ceramic artist combining all my past experiences and interests in to an art form that I have found I have a natural flair for. My pottery work has a stong green man and historic theme and can be described as "Folk Art" of a traditional British "Arts & Crafts" style. I live and work in ancient Brancepeth Castle, near historic Durham City.Visit my website for further information about me & my work; - thegreenmanpottery.com .Also take a look at; - green-man-potter.deviantart.com , where I have some more pictures of my work and home. My archaeology work is mostly concerned with the study of the landscape (particularly hedges, woodland and field boundaries) and man's effects on it and its effects on man. I worked on a number of archaeological geophysical surveys in Scotland, Ireland (Tara) and England (Whitby), and spent the summer of 1999 analysing Hungarian prehistoric stone tools in Budapest. A lovely city that I enjoyed living in for those few week. However, "paid" archaeological work was always very sparse for me, hence the change to becoming a potter.The Green Man has opened up a new & exciting world to me of arts & crafts & craft fairs & artists & artisans & admiring customers. He has led to many new friends, and the enrichment of many existing friendships, and a change in the status of many exisiting contacts. As a consequence my life has become much richer, if not financially (that's not really what I am about), very much so socially!

My Interests

My interests are very mixed and multidisciplinary, in addition to the ones previously mentioned mentioned I have a keen interest in Folk Music and dancing at Ceilidhs, playing music (mostly Early and Folk Music), walking in the countryside, travel (France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Austria and Hungary), geology, reading, model soldier painting, photography, watching TV/films and talking!

I'd like to meet:

Interesting people, new friends and potential customers. And bands, if you are going to request my friendship, please send a message to increase your chances of acceptance. Chances are that if you don't send a note, and have over a 1,000 friends, I wont accept you. www.nineladiesdesign.co.uk

Music:

My musical interests are very varied, depending on mood and spirit, and whatever else that might effect me at the time. My musical collection covers everything from Early Music to Pop Music, as long as its tuneful & melodic, and not boring!!! I particularly like Early and Folk Music, especially dance music, which I enjoy listening to and playing on my recorders, and singing & dancing to! I am lucky enough to know many of the musicians who ar my Myspace friends personally (mainly through their conection to Brancepeth Castle). Favourite bands of all time? Its got to be "The Oyster Band", "The Cock and Bull Band", and "Horseplay"!

Movies:

I particularly like classic historical epics like "El Cid" and "The Vikings", & modern ones, like "Kingdoom of Heaven", even though my friends and I can annoy others with our "nit-picking" over historical details/faults. Not surprisingly I also like epic fanasy movies like "Lord of the Rings", etc., but also Space SiFi, like "Star Wars", "Star Trek" and I love the pure art and style of "The Fifth Element". I also enjoy a good detective thriller, especially those envolving ferensics (its just very fresh archaeology), except when they include bits of bad research or premote false history. And I like good bawdy comedies, like the "Cary-on" series, or the original version of "The Producers". And often I like watching really wierd stuff!

Television:

Much the same as my movie interests, but particularly historical documentaries (I used to enjoy natural history programmes, but they have mostly become rather sammy). Although I am finding many of them really annoying, because they spend the whole programme just repeating the same five minutes of actual content.I definately hate soaps, cookery, gardening, vet, hospital and home improvement/movement programmes, and I only have a limited tolerance of 101 similarly themed antiques and car boot sale themed programmes.

Books:

My extensive non-fiction library reflects my many interests, and my fiction collection mainly consists of good acurate historical fiction by authors like Mary Renault and Alfred Duggan.

Heroes:

The only heros I can think of straight off the top of my head all relate to my archaeological career, and I am happy to be aquainted with all of them. They are: - Rosemary Cramp (my old professor of archaeology at Durham Uni); Brian Roberts (who developed much of the landscape history theory that I used in my PhD); and Mick Aston (the leader of "Time Team", who was my external examiner for my PhD). I also greatly admire Margaret Dodson the very patient and understanding owner of the Castle I live in.

My Blog

Latest Trip (brief synopsis)

I will be working on a series of blogs based on my 1,400 mile journey of the last week and a bit over the next few days/today/sometime soon; but it was a combination of holiday and visiting family, an...
Posted by Steve the Green Man Potter on Sun, 05 Oct 2008 08:13:00 PST

Building a Stone Circle; a wonderful experience

Sentry Circle, (near Northallerton, North Yorkshire.) is one of two new stone circles that have been errected by mainly local north-eastern English pagans (the other is Lime Tree Farm near Rippon); an...
Posted by Steve the Green Man Potter on Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:20:00 PST

A strange Dream?

I had a strange disturbed night last night, with trouble sleeping, which isn't too unusual the night before a show/event, but it was marked by a strange dream, much of which I can still remember. I mu...
Posted by Steve the Green Man Potter on Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:16:00 PST

Two Years on Myspace!

I nearly forgot, but this week, or last, is/was the second aniversary of my joining Myspace! I remembered because I went to take my now anual visit to watch the salmon and sea trout leaping up the wei...
Posted by Steve the Green Man Potter on Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:16:00 PST

Good News at last! Wey hey the Scots!

Good News at last! Wey hey the Scots! After weeks of poor sales at all these shows I have been attending, I finally had some good sales last weekend at the Lanark Medieval Fair in Scotland. This is Sc...
Posted by Steve the Green Man Potter on Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:20:00 PST

Crap Sales in Hawes; but the Green Man finds his Totem Animal. Perhaps? Part 2

What follows will sound to some like one of Cobwweb's blogs, but its not, it mine! All Mine!! Some of you will know that I have been told that the Green Man is leading me along a path, and with hindsi...
Posted by Steve the Green Man Potter on Tue, 12 Aug 2008 06:21:00 PST

Fair Rosamonde

Basically, as I hope you already know, in the 12thC Elanor of Aquitaine was a renowned woman of importance and of considerable estates, and presumably a good lay, as the court of romance and all today...
Posted by Steve the Green Man Potter on Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:04:00 PST

"Summer is a Coming in!" So where have I been?

So where have I been? Can you tell me at what point you figured it out? (More pictures are viewable in the picture album) I was bored Friday evening, and was on the phone to one of my two best f...
Posted by Steve the Green Man Potter on Sun, 13 Jul 2008 03:18:00 PST

Left-handed people are evil!

This isn't the blog I intended to post the other day that Myspace ate without posting it. I still need to face re-writing that one.   Left-handed people are evil! As they are SINISTER! (Latin for...
Posted by Steve the Green Man Potter on Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:07:00 PST

Smoking, Natives & Polygamy!

Some interesting items in the news recently that have just pointed out some of the inconsistancies of our thought to be superior "Wester" culture/political systems, etc. I wont be talking about the ri...
Posted by Steve the Green Man Potter on Sat, 31 May 2008 05:50:00 PST