York welcomes Ceramic Art to the city

We ventured to the very first Ceramic Art York on Thursday to attend the preview; what a great bunch of warm and friendly makers they were! It was a very inspiring and fun evening. Presented by the Craft Potters Association of Great Britain and York Museums Trust, Ceramic Art York is an exciting new showcase of contemporary ceramic art and one which is definitely worth a visit. This new event is taking place to mark the opening of the new Centre of Ceramic Art (CoCA) at York Art Gallery and you’ve still got time to see it as it’s in York Museum Gardens until Sunday 13 September, 10am-5pm.

And what a great city to host this show! Full of history and culture contrasting with the wonderful contemporary work on display by these inspiring 50 ceramicists. It was great to see some familiar faces there whilst admiring the work on display. Chiu-i Wu’s beautiful work currently on display in our Figure That exhibition was a joy to see and we had a nice chat with Richard Phethean who recently sent us some new pieces for display.

We also had a chat with Rebecca Appleby who was launching a brand new collection at the show. We worked with Rebecca many moons ago so it was exciting to see how the work had developed and she seemed excited herself at the launch after working so hard on the pieces. Rebecca studied at Batley School of Art and Design in our very own Yorkshire and Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland and we’ll be keeping her in kind for inclusion in our future exhibition programme.

Debbie Barber has been very busy too; we spotted several new pieces at her stand including some lovely ceramic chickens and new bottle shape forms. We put them on our Christmas wish-list so if we’ve been good we might just be getting some for display here to add to her current work. Follow our social media posts to find out all about our new arrivals and daily goings on or you can sign up to our newsletter via our website www.craftcentreleeds.co.uk

As the sun set over the River Ouse we ventured back to the train station home; our heads filled with great ideas for future shows and thoughts of how lucky we were to be involved with such inspiring people. Long live Ceramic Art York and we hope it becomes as popular as some of the other attractions you’ll find in York for many years to come.