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.
Claire creates decorative smoke-fired pots. She chooses to use porcelain due to its strong resistance to wild temperature changes during the smoke-firing process. Her pots are not functional nor suitable for holding water due to the porous quality of the unglazed burnished clay which is necessary for smoke-firing.
Lea Phillips makes a wide range high fired stoneware pottery, mostly functional plus some larger one-off pieces. All the ceramics are wheel-thrown, fired in an electric kiln and decorated with free abstract designs using vibrant colourful glazes made to her own recipes. A firm believer that oxidised firing is no barrier to interesting surfaces Lea enjoys glaze development and the challenge of combining form, colour, and pattern.
Gaynor Ostinelli and Paul Priest, or Ostinelli & Priest, are well known for their animal sculptures which draw on both domestic and wildlife. Exhibited around the world, their work is represented in numerous galleries, public and private collections in the UK and overseas. The animals and mythical figures they sculpt vary as their subjects, and the demand for the work, expands.
John discovered ceramics while still at school in his native New Zealand. He was also inspired by watching a neighbour throwing a pot on the wheel and that cemented the desire to learn more. After attending night classes to learn the basic, he built a kiln and shed in the back garden to continue making and experimenting.
Elly graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2004. Since then, she has exhibited in numerous galleries and craft fairs. She produces work from her garden studio in Hertford.
Elly’s work is hand-built using slabs of clay with multiple slips, textural marks and impressions applied during the making process. Glaze is also applied and sometimes rubbed back, then the pieces are high fired.
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.
