Contemporary Ceramics gallery and shop exhibits the greatest collectable names in British ceramics along with the most up and coming artists of today. Our distinguished makers are all carefully selected members of the Craft Potters Association.
All of our makers are members of the Craft Potters Association and each of them have a story to tell.
Jude undertook a foundation course at Somerset College of Art & Design, then gained a Dip. AD at Gloucester College of Art & Design in Fine Art (Sculpture with Painting). At art school, Jude worked mainly in bronze. She married John Jelfs in 1972 and became a potter. Jude and John live and work at the Cotswold Pottery, located in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, UK.
Ian’s work is a contemporary interpretation of country pottery. His salt glazed domestic ware focuses on line, surface and balance. He likes to emphasise tactility and evidence of the maker’s hand, highlighting the subtle marks and fingerprints from handling and attachments. This, combined with clean lines make his work approachable and usable, while giving the work extra durability that comes from the firing process.
John comes from a family of engineers going back several generations, so it was natural for him to follow suit. However, he made an unenthusiastic engineer, and after several years teaching he went back to college and gained a place on the 3D course at Manchester College of Art where he was introduced to clay for the first time.
Jonathan graduated from Farnham Art School in 1974 and worked for Joe Finch at Appin Pottery in Scotland. He began making once fired domestic ware in a pale stoneware body, guided and inspired by Bernard Leach’s ‘A Potters Book’. He went on to work in porcelain and to decorate with a brush.
In 1999, Jonathan moved to East Sussex where he built a smaller kiln in a more spacious workshop. He began to experiment seriously with reduction fired lustre which had fascinated him ever since he attended a course given by the late Marjorie Clinton two years previously.
Penny Fowler is a London based potter whose work reflects 21st century living in the capital. Using porcelain and bone china clays, her work is characterised by clean, precise lines and forms using a strong palette.
Jane completed a foundation course at Chelsea School of Art, before obtaining a Fine Art degree at Winchester School of Art. She works in paper porcelain, a sensitive medium. The malleable, translucent yet robust qualities of the combination of clay and paper enables her to construct and hand build. Rolling the clay eggshell thin, tearing and pushing it to its limits to the final firing, Jane is entirely absorbed by the process of making.
