Micki Schloessingk

Micki makes wood-fired salt-glazed tableware, fired to a high stoneware temperature.

Travelling in India in 1968, Micki came across their ubiquitous everyday earthenware pots. She loved the connection between the earth and the pots and was introduced to throwing on a Leach wheel by Gurcharan Singh of Delhi Blue Potteries.

After a brief period at Sussex University, she left to become a potter. She worked at Terrybaun Pottery in Ireland, making slip trailed earthenware and then studied under Mick Casson and Victor Margrie on the Studio Pottery Course at Harrow College of Art, in London (1970-72).  She was taught by Walter Keeler and Mo Jupp, encouraged by Gwyn Hansen and inspired by John Reeves. Her first experience of making and firing with wood and salt glazing was with Gustave Tiffoche, in Guerande, France, the summer after her first year at Harrow. On her return to college along with a couple of other women students, she built her first wood-salt kiln. Leaving college, she returned to work with Gustave and then for a spell to Breda in Spain, where she worked in a traditional pottery, making wood-fired earthenware.

In 1975 she moved to Bentham, North Yorkshire, and set up her pottery making wood-fired salt-glazed tableware. Since 1987, she has been making pots on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales. Micki continues to be committed to making and exhibiting wood-fired salt-glazed tableware.