Anthony Dix

Anthony has been making pots for over forty years following a BA at Cardiff University, where he had the opportunity to build a salt kiln and learned to throw. These two things have been central to his making ever since. He returned to Cardiff to complete an MA twenty years ago and focused on rekindling his love of vapour glazing. He switched to soda firing when it was no longer possible to salt glaze at Cardiff.

He developed his functional work considering divine proportion and surfaces through the soda kiln. Anthony’s pots are influenced by spirals in nature, and the functionality of utilitarian architecture revealed in its external appearance. He combines taught thrown forms which are sometimes enclosed and distorted with spiral textured handles that are either allowed to unfurl as they dry, or are cut to form handles. These are exploited by the soda in the kiln revealing details which would be lost by other glaze processes.

The set up of Anthony’s workshop is small scale and his soda kiln is an old electric kiln reclined and fired with propane gas. It is relatively small but allows for the intensity of the orange peel surface he desires in his work. Anthony is committed to making work for the use and enjoyment of people coming together to share food.