Clarice Cliff was born in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, and left school at 13 to start work in one of the local firms, like so many young women her age in The Potteries. Unlike many of her contemporaries who aimed to master a single skill, though, she moved  to different jobs so that she could acquire a wide range of artistic and design experience. In 1916 she started working for A. J. Wilkinson's Royal Staffordshire Pottery in Middleport, Burslem, and in 1927 she was given her own studio and her famous 'Bizarre' collection was launched. 

One of the films enjoyed over the Christmas period was The Colour Room which was released in 2021 and perhaps suffered undue neglect due to the pandemic. It tells the story, in an enjoyably escapist and feel-good way, of the rise and rise of the enormously talented and ambitious ceramic artist-designer Clarice Cliff (1899-1972). So she is the subject of this week's Posts, and we begin with this photo of her working on her 'Applique Etna' design in 1930.

We come to the end of the advent calendar with a Christmas Day quote from Mrs Miniver and a painting by Gilbert Spencer, The Cottage Window (1937, Manchester Art Gallery). "There were sounds of movement in the house; they were within measurable distance of the blessed chink of early morning tea. Mrs. Miniver looked towards the window. The dark sky had already paled a little in its frame of cherry-pink chintz, Eternity framed in domesticity. Never mind. One had to frame it in something, to see it all."

The Post will return on 5th January.

Christmas is a central theme in Little Women as a re/read of the delightful opening chapters reminds us. Alternatively, there are several classic film adaptations from 1933, 1949, 1994, and 2019 to watch. The best-dressed March sisters are undoubtedly those in the latest version directed by Greta Gerwig, and the film won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design in 2020.

Now is the time to enjoy some old Christmas-themed films such as The Shop Around the Corner (1940) with James Stewart and Maureen Sullavan. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, it inspired You've Got Mail (1998) directed by Nora Ephron with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan who plays the owner of a children's bookshop called 'The Shop Around the Corner'. (The Bishop's Wife (1947) with Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven is also a great watch at Christmas.)

"Jigsaws are a joy at Christmas, the ideal gift, the perfect employment. They provide hours of painless social intercourse or moments of peaceful, solitary retreat. They come in all sizes, all degrees of difficulty, for all ages, at all prices. They can be educational, artistic, kitsch, challenging, competitive, communal and comforting. You can do them in silence, or you can talk round the table. They give you an illusion of order and progress when all around is chaos. They draw out the venom of the year's barbs of neglect and anger. They keep you sane. They are very low-tech. All you need is a big table and a good light." Margaret Drabble, author of The Pattern in the Carpet (2009), writing about jigsaws here.