Potted History

I have been making pots for over 20 years and exhibited throughout the UK and sold to galleries and shops via all the major trade fairs. I have pots in various private collections including the Rothschild collection. My work has evolved and matured and followed many different styles and techniques, but the process of making has remained the same always aiming for the highest standards, and creating original honest, and intuitive work that has been informed by historical, and hard won practical experience as a production thrower.

 I have always followed an intuitive experimental approach to clay following many pathways in my development as a potter and as a teacher, this creative thirst for knowledge and passion for my vocation, I hope is shown in the work that I have produced over the years. Wisp farmhouse pottery based in Scotland was a successful pottery producing wood fired salt glaze stoneware and sold throughout the UK, and in Kettering I produced garden ware and cookware for direct sale to the public and some shops.

 My formal training at Wrexham College of art, Chesterfield College of art and Cardiff. With teachers David Binns, Willie Carter, Geoffrey Fuller, Trevor Nicklen, Chris Yenson, Geoff Swindell, and Pete Starkey and a whole host of visiting lecturers have enabled me to experiment and play with kiln building and glaze technology and this has remained the core of my practice as a teacher and a maker.

For years-long before I had access to a wood fired kiln, I have been attracted to the pots of the Shigaraki period in Japan and the beauty of flame markings on a pot.
The simplicity of the pots and the use of local materials clay, rocks, and ash for making glazes have inspired me to create work that is I believe unpretentious and honest. The building of many kilns over the years has also allowed my work to progress, and more recently the building of 2 kilns an Olsen fast fire and in collaboration with Willie Carter a bourry fire box side stoke kiln have enabled me to produce a variety of work that reflects my individual style.

My work is not over decorated and relies more on the forms and the subtle relationship of intuitive decoration and the natural glazes, these are formulated from local materials and I use these as much as possible for my slips and glazes particularly wood ash from various wood burning stoves, and stone dust from a number of quarries and stone cutting businesses. I also investigate and experiment with river iron slips and high iron clays. More recently I have found red clay that I dig from the side of a mountain in Llangollen this makes a fantastic slip and an incredible red crystal glaze.

 I do take on commissions and enjoy the challenge of making to order having managed two professional pottery businesses, and I am at my most creative when I am working towards deadlines for gallery exhibitions this gives me the opportunity to experiment and produce new work.