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.
John left art school in 1970 and dug trenches for gas pipes for a living. Later, through his college friend’s brother (who was a potter) John worked for David Frith in North Wales. He found the discipline hard, but it has stood him in good stead ever since.
Alistair studied ceramics at Bath Academy of Art and set up his first pottery studio in Gloucestershire in 1978, producing thrown reduction fired stoneware for a range of companies. While continuing with his own making he later took on the running of the studio ceramics department at The Royal Forest of Dean College and instigating a series of potters conferences.
Kim's work is inspired by the history, geology and people of South Wales, where she has lived and worked throughout her career. Some of her ceramics work is a direct response to historical events, whilst other pieces explore wider, more general themes and narratives. The geological structure of the South Wales Coalfield is a current theme, acting as a metaphor for the way that communities bury and distort the past, creating memories that fit their contemporary needs.
John has been making stoneware pottery in the North Lancashire village of Yealand Redmayne for forty years. The firing process requires a temperature of 1320c, and a smoky/reducing atmosphere in the kiln, which results in rich glaze colours and exciting unpredictable effects on the pots. Most of the pots are classically simple functional shapes, thrown on the wheel, but John occasionally alters the freshly thrown pots to produce one of the signature forms for which he is well known.
Tricia graduated from Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen in 1985 and after a post graduate year, she worked for a production pottery in the Highlands for three years. While there, she became a principal hand-decorator of pots and developed some surface designs for the range, but also received a grounding knowledge of the ceramics industry and practices.
