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Championing the very best independent ceramic makers for over 60 years

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.

 

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Meet Our Makers

All of our makers are members of the Craft Potters Association and each of them have a story to tell.

Lesley McShea

Lesley was born in Lancashire, England and is based in Stoke Newington in London.

She discovered ceramics at an early age, in Australia, where the textures and colours of the landscapes and terrain greatly influenced her. She studied firstly in Australia where she gained a Diploma (Distinction) in Ceramics at Caulfield Institute of Technology in 1982.

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Jane Sheppard

Jane is a self-taught ceramicist and began coiling and smoke firing over 30 years ago. She worked for many years as a lecturer in art specialising in ceramics and finds inspiration in neolithic landscapes and artefact.  Living on the Somerset/ Wiltshire border provides rich source material.

The meditative simplicity of coiling is a fundamental part of her practice.  Jane is fascinated by the universality of clay and how it lies at the heart of the human experience.  She travelled widely in Africa researching the spiritual use of clay and visiting remote pottery communities, running workshops in the Namibia and Kalahari deserts with funding from the British Council.

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Duncan Ayscough

Duncan’s fascination with clay began as a child in his parents’ garden. The colour, smell and malleability of the earth led him to discover at school the transformation of clay by heat into a permanent object. As a teenager, Duncan was captivated by seeing his teacher throwing a pot on a kick-wheel, his bedroom posters were images of communist revolutionary heroes and 20th-century studio pottery.

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Adela Powell

Adela studied the natural sciences and her work reflects a depth of observation of the natural world. Universal patterns, textures, and forms in nature, where science and art are inseparable, were Adela’s constant source of inspiration. She was particularly drawn to fragmentation and erosion, which she attempted to incorporate in her work, allowing fortuitous accidents and influences from the subconscious to enrich the process.

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Ashley Howard

Ashley Howard creates porcelain vessels informed by Far-Eastern and homespun pottery traditions. His pieces draw from his interest in ritual vessels, the spaces they occupy and the ceremonies that surround them.

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Carl Gray

The functional wheel-thrown pots that Carl creates are modest but highly
considered and precisely made, sometimes altered when wet, often with
spontaneous, energetic surface marks. Everything is conceived in the
knowledge that his work will be wood-fired.

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