Ant first encountered pottery in primary school. His teacher, Mr Wright introduced him to clay and planted the beginnings of a lifelong passion. He started out as a science teacher but gave up teaching in his late twenties after years of evening classes and moved to Lincolnshire to set up his own pottery workshop.
Ant has been making pots for over 50 years, the first 25 spent producing terracotta garden pots and then, side by side with his wife Di making maiolica ware. Together in late 2019, they decided on a fundamental shift away from wheel thrown, functional domestic orientated ware. In the early months of 2020, just before lockdown, they began their quest to produce large hand-coiled vessels, decorated with black geometric designs and without the use of glaze.
Influences and techniques come from many sources but most significantly from the Pueblo Potters of New Mexico, USA; and in the UK, from the work of Gabriele Koch and Magdalene Odundo. These makers are responsible for pots of outstanding merit and craftsmanship and have established a level of excellence that Ant and Di aspire to achieve.
Ant & Di Edmonds’ present work has been developed over the past six years. All the pots are coiled by Ant and subsequently pinched, scraped and beaten into shape. The decoration is applied by hand – a full time occupation for Di – between coiling sessions for Ant. The monochromatic designs and abstract patterns are drawn and adapted from many sources including Pueblo Pottery of New Mexico. USA and 1960s Op Art. Each of this couples’ magnificent vessels are dazzling accomplishments embodying the culmination of skill, passion and time.
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This exhibition profiles the works of eight esteemed makers, each of whom have recently been awarded Selected Member status by the Craft Potters Association.
Lise’s primary interests lie in creating decorative and sculptural forms with highly textured, expressive surfaces. The work is deeply rooted in the rugged landscape she grew up in in Norway, imbuing a sense of place, timelessness and quiet beauty within each piece, as if they were found, rather than made.
This exhibition profiles the works of ten esteemed makers, each of whom have recently been awarded Selected Member status by the Craft Potters Association.
As his working practice approaches fifty years, Jack Doherty’s work has become simpler and more focused. By stripping away what he considers unnecessary, Jack’s process now involves just one clay, one colouring mineral, and a single firing. For inspiration and courage, he looks back to prehistoric vessels, powerful anonymous objects that held both practical and spiritual significance in everyday life. These forms, made before art or craft, speak profoundly of their time and the people who lived with them.
“Simplicity is complexity resolved” - Constantin Brancusi
Lara Scobie is an Edinburgh based ceramic artist specialising in individual slip-cast vessels and bowls made in porcelain and parian clay. Focusing on the dynamic between form and pattern her work explores the cohesive integration of drawing, surface, mark making and volume. The off-center ellipses of the individual forms echo line drawings and decoration applied to the painted surfaces.
“The theme of balance is a constant, significantly underlining my current work in which ideas of dynamic interplay between form and surface develop.” – Lara Scobie
Sue’s work draws on the quiet resilience of trees and bones—forms shaped by time, marked by fragility and carrying memories of growth and decay. Through slow, receptive hand-building, each piece develops as if guided by an internal rhythm. Textured surfaces hold lines like weathered stories, while a soft matte glaze evokes a sense of calmness.
‘My hurt, my joy, my scars, my healing, all shape the work I create in clay.’ – Sue Mundy