I make a LOT of mugs. They’re probably my favourite thing to make. Everyone understands a mug, and almost everyone uses a mug at least once a day. They’re a very personal item – and people tend to have favourites. Favourite style, shape, colour, whatever. My favourite was made by one of Lisa Hammond’s apprentices, …
Beech ash gives an amazing soft green tone and semi-matt satiny feel to these jars. It’s hard to come by and I wish I had an infinite amount of it. Fun fact, it takes a ton of wood to generate a kilo of ash. A kilo of ash makes a small-medium sized bucket of glaze. …
These jars are glazed with a ‘lava’ glaze, otherwise known as an ‘oilspot’ glaze. It forms when you layer one glaze over another, and the glazes have just the right chemistry to react in the way they do. I then applied an additional layer of colourful glazes to get the effect you see before you. …
Teabowls are a used for serving matcha tea and and come in many forms. They range in shape from the exquisitely refined all the way to the incredibly rough and ready. This one attempts to strike a balance between the worlds of natural and man made. They are part of the experience of tea drinking, …
My mark changes from time to time, mainly because I lose the stamp and have to make another. This is my current stamp and the one I have settled on for now. It’s ‘T’ with two dots, one on each side. I do try to remember to stamp all my work, but sometimes I forget. …
Moonjars are traditional Korean forms used to store rice, vinegar and other foodstuffs. They’re normally quite large and often made in two sections. Bernard Leach famously gifted an exquisite moonjar to another famous potter, Lucie Rie. It’s quite an interesting story. This one’s quite small and thrown as a single pot. It’s glazed with a …
Yunomi is the Japanese word for “upright handleless teacup”. I make a lot of these kinds of forms and use them as wine glasses, water tumbers and whisky sippers. These are glazed using a very old ash recipe called “Leach 442”. The 442 refers to the quantity of ingredients in the glaze – 40% Ash, …
Stacking bowls present some unique challenges to the potter. I’ve not quite mastered the method of making them all line up height wise, but I can get them to neatly fit inside one another. I quite like the artichoke-ness of them! The bowl set above has been glazed with a glossy nuka glaze – which …
I’ve been playing with a new set of glazes recently to see if I can get a bit more movement into my decoration. I think I might be onto something here!