Tableware and serving items

 

Josie Walter

Josie makes tableware and cooking pots in earthenware clay which are decorated with slips and coloured glazes.  All the pots she makes are functional and are made to be used in the kitchen or for serving on the table.  The decorative motifs are used to complement the food cooked and served in them and provide a pot that is pleasing to the eye when not in use.  Most of the work is thrown on a momentum wheel, which Josie made at Chesterfield College, in the 1970s.  Josie enjoys the relaxed rhythm and the quietness of the flywheel as it is the only way to hear Radio 4 without interference.  Over the past years Josie has experimented with combinations of paper resist, colour infill and slip trailing.  Using the marks of a brush highlighted with scraffito has created a greater sense of movement and a fresh perspective and Josie is always on the lookout for new brushes or a way of applying slip; her two favourites at the moment are a coarse pastry brush and another made with dried grass collected from the beach on Anglesey, North Wales.  Josie also decorates with coloured glazes, again both thinly but with detail in thick, rather like applying watercolour, moving from light to dark.  Recent work has been based on leaf motifs, very appropriate to the Derbyshire countryside where she lives but she also continually returns to images of fruits, intrigued by the way fat pears ‘sit’ or oval lemons ‘lie’.

 

Ken Eardley

Ken Eardley is a ceramic artist based in Brighton. Coming from a textile background he has since explored ceramics as a decorative medium for his ideas.  His style and use of fun colour and graphic is now widely recognised and has been featured in numerous magazines.  All his pieces are made individually by ken and glazed using colourful earthenware glazes.

 

Laura Lane

Laura’s work is inspired by tall tales & folklore from Cornwall.  Made from a Cornish stoneware clay, these functional hand thrown ceramics are made with love.  The work is hand thrown, brushed with the dark slip & then decorated using a sgraffito technique, before being dipped in a white tin glaze.  These layers and brush marks that you can see represent the idea of storytelling being passed down through the generations, much akin to Chinese Whispers, some parts are brushed over and lost whilst other marks are clearly there for us all to see.  The slate/blue colour is a reminder of the moors, skies and sea.  All of these separate elements are pulled together with a pinch of fun using functional vessels as a canvas. 

 

Emma Lacey

Every object Emma creates is driven by a love of subtle and sensual forms and a passion for design and making.  She enjoys the tactility of clay both during the making process and after firing, hoping this comes across in her work.  People are often drawn in by the shape and colour of Emma’s pieces then continue to explore and discover them the longer they hold them for.  The contrast between a matt and glossy glaze might encourage you to explore the surface, or the form might make you hold a cup in a particular way.  Similarly, the dent in the Everyday range allows the person holding it to get a sense of the softness of the clay just after the shape is thrown on the wheel.  Emma loves the thought that the material properties of an object can connect the designer or maker’s experience to that of the person using it.

 

William Firth

William has always been creative, whether it be making music or building all of his own bedroom furniture when he was a teenager.  He has always been hand crafting something or other, inspired by seeing his Grandad turning bowls on his lathe when he was a child.  One of the most important things to him about starting William Firth Woodcraft was to ensure that he used the highest quality materials, processes and finishes to ensure his products last at least one lifetime.  William is truly passionate about every item his creates and feels lucky he can now call woodcraft his career.  Every single one of his products is 100% handmade from start to finish and is therefore unique.  Each product has its own story and starts its own journey when it leaves his workshop.

 

Luke Bishop

Luke makes contemporary porcelain vessels using a variety of traditional methods, including the potter’s wheel.  His work often plays with and questions our typically held assumptions of what makes an object functional.  Luke’s primary interest is a continuing exploration of the (sometimes fractious) marriage between Abstraction and Function.  His work is a study in contrasts combining sharp, refined silhouettes with uneven, organic edges and rough white porcelain surfaces against rich, smooth glazes.   Luke’s ceramic practice is informed by a background in graphic design, Information Architecture, interface design and an innate interest in functionality and human behaviour.  An urban ceramicist living and working in Central London, Luke’s influences are wide ranging; the quirky utilitarian and sculptural pots of Ben Fiess, the quiet canvasses or Giorgio Morandi, the mysterious graphic design of 23 Envelope and the honest ringware ceramics by Bauer from the early 20th century.  Luke studied ceramics at the CityLit in Central London and earned his Master of Arts Degree from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.

 

Victoria Claire Dawes

‘For Dennis ’is a reflection upon the time Victoria spent working for Dennis Black, a former Sheffield steel worker, as his cleaner in the late stages of his life.  A red brick house with strong blue trim decorated with anaglypta wallpaper, faded floral carpets, net curtains and carefully displayed trinkets, walking into Dennis’s house was like taking a step into the past.  He told great stories of his family and a life working in the steel industry.  While Victoria knew Dennis he lived to honour the promise he made to his wife’s father when she moved to Sheffield from Wales to always look after her.

Consisting of a bread bin, butter dish, butter and bread knives and 9 inch plate the collection is a celebration of a self-contained family life.  A life spent providing for and taking care of each other through industrial and domestic work with the kitchen table at the heart of the home.  The pieces are designed for everyday use;rRelatively simple in form, they draw inspiration from pieces of industrial structure and the décor of the home that Dennis and his wife created together.  The surfaces of the pieces celebrate a harmony between two very contrasting veins of hard work undertaken in the steel industry and the home to take care of each other and bring up a family.  Victoria uses use red earthenware in the creation of her works; the most abundant clay on the Earth’s surface.  Through its formation process the clay travels through glaciers, rivers and streams breaking down and picking up oxides and detritus that provide its rich colour and low firing properties.  Having emigrated between England and New Zealand at an early age, choosing to travel and study in the Upper Midwest of America,  Victoria feels connected to earthenware as a material affected and formed by the places it has passed through.  Using the potter’s wheel and slow repetitive mark-making processes, Victoria’s practice is a meditation on the past as she makes tableware inspired by memories of her home.  Drawn from a romanticised nostalgia for people, places and traditions,  she brings together snippets of banister spindles, soft drapery, embroidery and loose pyjamas to decorate pieces to be used and shared around today’s tables.  Built from memories of the past at the beginning of new traditions, my cups and plates find life on and off well-loved sideboards, growing in character as they pick up chips on their rims; the patina of a life well lived.

 

Helen Faulkner

Originally from Belfast Helen initially studied Contemporary Crafts in England before beginning the CCOI Pottery Skills course, in Thomastown, to improve the technical side of her work.  Thomastown gradually worked its charm on her and she worked with several great potters over nearly seven years.  More recently she moved back to Northern Ireland to take part in the Making It Programme.  Helen makes tableware designed for food that feels good in the hand and makes you what to eat or drink from them.  Helen wants her work to tie in with how people live yet still stand out and show that it has been made with care, consideration and skill, not popped off a production line for quick sale.   The work Helen makes is mostly for food, Helen’s other love in life.  She makes pottery to be used in the kitchen, serving family and friends and tries to make pieces that fit into how one cooks (an example being a small flat based bowl with a pouring spout which she made for her sister for her to mix her marinades for her famous curry nights).