Milk into Horn

A sample room in a stone mill in a Gloucestershire valley on a rainy autumn day, soft grey light from a tall window streaked with rain, on an oak table bundles of long round rods of casein plastic in marbled and horn patterns, black flecked with green, red and black, yellow-brown marbled, silver-grey veined, blue and silver, pale yellow with a fine black net, beside them a fan of square plates in white, mint green, cobalt blue, yellow, pink, red and magenta, behind soft in focus an open stoneware tank with plates lying in clear liquid, a hand in a grey work sleeve holding a tortoiseshell rod up to the window.