Guest Potters
Throughout the year we invite or select guest ceramic artists to exhibit their work at our shop for a limited period of 1-2 months.
If you would like to be considered as a guest artist please contact our Manager, Cat MacKenzie, at with your artist statement and a selection of images.
October/November 2019 was Katharina Klug:
My work is about simplicity of design and shape, bringing these in relationship to the surface. I am inspired by the elemental colour and shape of ancient Korean pottery. What I love about ceramic is that it starts of as a soft lump and can become pretty much anything you want it to be. After the firing it is hard and durable and can survive centuries. But at the same time it’s fragile and can be broken into pieces in a moment.
I aim to create timeless vessels for contemporary interiors. Each piece is individually made from porcelain on the potter’s wheel. Naïve, spontaneous pencil strokes, graphic simple patterns that create movement and direction. Every line is drawn by hand which makes the
work preserve the moment of making. The imperfections in the pattern make it lively, rough and immediate and unique but still holding an order or direction to bind them together. The Narrative to my work is coming from little snippets of observation in my environment. Lines
are jumping out on me in almost anything – stripes on cloth, wires and cables, plants and grasses, architecture and streets just to name a few.
After growing up in my mother’s pottery business, I trained professionally at college in Austria and Germany for 6 years. I set up business in Cambridge in 2011 and have been given the silver award 2013 and 2015 by Craft and Design magazine in the ceramic
category.
In 2014 I was chosen to join the Crafts Councils Hothouse programme. In 2016 I was accepted for selected membership of the Craft Potters Association (CPA).
This year I have been shortlisted for the international Nasser Sparkasse Ceramic Price Westerwald/Germany. 2017 I exhibited for the first time at Ceramic Art London. I also got an honourable mention for two of my entries into the International Ceramic Festival competition Japan. My work was featured in the 289 issue of Ceramic Review for their Masterclass series in 2018.
August/September 2019 was Jack Welbourne:
Jack found clay at Plymouth College of Art while studying Art & Design.
He then went onto studying a Ceramics Degree at Cardiff Metropolitan University, graduating in 2014 with a 1st class degree.
For the next couple years Jack became an apprentice with various potters; studying in Sweden for 6months; and teaching taught adults with special, before setting up his own studio in Cardiff. Jack also teaches at One Wall Studios, which is where his studio is based
Jack creates reduction-fired tableware. He throws his pots from Cornish clay and collects and refines materials like wood ash, wild clays and okras to use as slips on his pots or as ingredients in glazes. His pots are fired in a 12cft gas kiln over 10-12 hours with a 4-5 hour reduction.
July/August 2019 was Gary Edwards:
New sculptural ceramic pieces by Hastings ceramicist Gary Edwards.
Edwards studied Ceramics at the Central School of Art & Design in the 1970s before completing two Artist in Residence sojourns at Carmel College in Wallingford and Battersea Arts Centre in London.
He then went off to work in other areas before coming back to ceramics in 2016. He creates hand-built and thrown vessels with an emphasis on the texture of the glazes he uses.
June /July 2019 was The Village Pottery:
Exhibition of new functional ceramic pieces by Bristol ceramicist Jen Hamilton. Jen studied Ceramics at Cardiff before moving to Bristol and setting up The Village Pottery (formerly in Clifton Village, now based at Easton in Gordano).
Jen teaches from the studio, as well as displaying her work in galleries and exhibitions across the UK.
Since studying at Cardiff, Jen has nurtured her love for hand-crafted objects and believes that the story of the maker is in each piece created, giving it a soul and the ability to bring joy in their everyday use.
Developing over the years, Jen has grown The Village Pottery into an established business that now offers lessons, wedding lists, baby feet imprints, personalised commissions and designing bespoke tableware for Michelin star restaurants.
However, her love for sharing this process and the joy it brings to those who use her pottery still remains the focal point of what makes The Village Pottery.
May/June 2019 was Jayne Tricker Artist:
Potters Bristol welcomes this Cheltenham-based ceramicist, painter and art educator.
“The main focus of Jayne’s pottery is that it functions. The form and size of the pots are made with usability in mind.
“Texture and other decoration are both for aesthetic interest and function. These either give grip or highlight the contours of the pot allowing for easier visual understanding before and whilst the pot is in the hands.
“The hope is that they fit well in the hands and therefore become an extension of the user’s own body. The pots she makes often feature turned feet and repeat pattern carved or painted in bands around the body of the pots.
“Jayne’s work takes inspiration from many sources; most apparent are both Japanese and British studio pottery, and the most direct influence is from her own use of handmade pottery at home.
April/May 2019 was Robyn Cove Ceramics:
Exhibition of new functional ceramic pieces by Scottish ceramicist Robyn Cove.
Robyn Cove displays her work in shows, galleries and exhibitions across the UK and her work has been published internationally. From her home studio in Cardiff she makes pottery that captures a rustic warmth with full forms and contemporary surface designs.
“The main focus of my pottery is that it functions,” Robyn explains. “The form and size of the pots are made with usability in mind. Texture and other decoration are both for aesthetic interest and function.
“These either give grip or highlight the contours of the pot allowing for easier visual understanding before and whilst the pot is in the hands.
“The hope is that they fit well in the hands and therefore become an extension of the user’s own body. The pots I make often feature turned feet and repeat pattern carved or painted in bands around the body of the pots.
“My work takes inspiration from many sources; most apparent are both Japanese and British studio pottery, the most direct influence is from my own use of handmade pottery at home.”
March/April 2019 was Alice Duckworth of Duck Ceramics:
Duck Ceramics is an independent pottery studio run by Alice Duck. Originally founded in a small attic room in her Bristol flat, she now makes and finishes each piece by hand in her Brighton studio.
The technique she uses is called slip casting. Commercially this process is used, along with machines, to reproduce identical copies of one product, churning out hundreads of 'perfect' duplicates. Alice has stripped this technique down and added individual elements to each piece to make them unique. It might be a drunk mug, or a wonky vase, or the lines may not be as straight as they 'should be' but this is why she fell in love with handmade ceramics.
February/March 2019 was Lucy Baxendale Mixed Media:
Lucy Baxendale is an explorer of imaginary worlds, inspired by folklore, mythology, ritual & traditions.
Using a form of a surrealist automatism, she draws from her unconscious to produce drawings which often become the inspiration for her ceramic work. She is curious about how you choose to translate a 2D drawing into a 3D form and pushes herself to build challenging structures in porcelain, using a variety of different hand building techniques.
Her unusual home-ware range comes from her desire to add playfulness to function, inspired by the imaginary world in her head.
October/November 2018 was Emma Finch Ceramics:
About the Artist:
Emma first worked with clay at the age of 9 at Chelsea Pottery. She then studied her Art and Design Foundation at Central School of Art, London. She was awarded her BA in 3D Design; specialising in ceramics, from Bath Spa University, before she then went onto complete an MA in Ceramics and Glass at The Royal College of Art in London.
Emma then went on to be chosen by the Crafts Council UK as a new rising talent in 2015, to be chosen as part of the Hothouse business mentoring programme.
Since graduating she has been exhibiting all over the UK, completing private commissions, and teaching at various institutions.
Her work:
Emma Finch makes ceramic forms in response to the surrounding world, focusing on urban decrepitude and renewal, as well as a lost post-war ideal - epitomised by estates, building sites, demolitions and new constructions. Construction and demolition sites are recurring motifs in her work, where buildings and architectural structures are charged with meanings related to social change, hope and utopia. Moments in time are captured in drawings, collage, print and photography before being translated into ceramic as a direct form of documentation:
Entrapment and limitless freedom – circumstances equally used to characterise city life– are represented in gridded buildings and vast skies. Colour is central to Finch’s work, used for its ability to denote moods: from black, immersive and enigmatic, to dark, inky blue, signifying the unknown and bright, sky-blue representing a sense of yearning and fantasy. Slabs of clay are hand painted and screen-printed composing one-off, vibrantly coloured images. Using the decorated sheets of clay as if fabric, they are constructed into vessels and plates where each object, individually made and unique, holds a complex story in overlapping components and montaged images, exploiting the exuberant tactile qualities of glaze and rich, multi-coloured surfaces.
August/September 2018 was Liz Vidal Ceramics:
Liz Vidal is a ceramicist based in Bristol. She specialises in functional ware made primarily from stoneware and porcelain.
Liz studied at Manchester School of Art, and graduated in 2010. Since then she has been teaching pottery to both children and adult students. For 5 years she worked at Clapham Pottery in London alongside being a member of the North Street Potters collective. In 2015 she went travelling and started her journey as a studio intern at the Gaya Ceramic Art Centre in Bali for 6 months – here she experimented with new decorative techniques, wood firing, gas firing and raku firing.
Liz Vidal is a Bristol based Potter, making functional ceramics and unique one-off pieces. She primarily works in stoneware or porcelain and sometimes her pots are decorated portraying her passion for birds, plants and fish. Liz’s range of homewares are thrown on the wheel or slab built and decorated with handmade stamps. Alongside this she also produces work for restaurants, both in Bristol and London.
Each pot goes through a loving process to achieve the final creation, beginning with the clay preparation. Through wedging the clay to remove air bubbles it becomes the perfect consistency to use. Liz then weighs the clay according to what she will be making and hand-moulds it into balls for throwing on the potter's wheel or rolls it out into flat slabs for hand-building. Once the pieces are thrown or constructed they are left over-night, sometimes loosely draped in plastic sheeting, to firm up before turning or trimming to neaten the bases. A few days later, once bone dry, work is stacked inside the kiln for the bisque firing to 1000c. After 24 hours the kiln is cool enough to open and pots are decorated or dipped in her unique glazes. Once all glaze has been removed from the bases and foot rings, Liz signs the piece and they are carefully placed back in the kiln for their second firing to 1280c. 36 hours later, when the kiln has dropped below 110c, the finished creations are laid out on a table to cool. The final stage is a quick sand of the base to remove any roughness and then they are ready to use!
All of Liz’s work is dishwasher and microwave proof.
July 2018 was James Newbold Ceramics:
James studied Ceramics and 3D design at Loughborough University, before moving into higher education to teach Ceramics, Art and Photography for 32 years. He then felt the call back to ceramics to create his own ranges of work full-time.
James’s ceramic pieces are all wheel-thrown or slip-cast stoneware and earthenware.
He produces functional bodies of work and specialises in raku and other alternative firing techniques. He has developed a four-stage firing process which involves using a white raku glaze followed by a mother of pearl lustre. The pots are then packed in sawdust and undergo a smoke reduction process where the unglazed body is darkened by the carbon, and the lustre surface becomes much richer in colour.
His forms vary in size from small pieces of jewellery to quite large thrown vessels. He keeps the shapes relatively simple so that the attention is drawn to the surface patterning created by the raku and glazes that he uses.
June/July 2018 was Craig Eyles Ceramics:
Craig’s ceramic pieces are all wheel thrown stoneware, and fired in an electric kiln.
He produces both functional and sculptural bodies of work, all decorated with layered glazes. By layering the glazes he aims to achieve subtle, elegant textural surfaces that are tactile as well as being harmoniously married to the range of forms created.
Experimentation is very important in the development of Craig’s thrown forms. He has taken time to explore how far the clay will stretch and hold. He enjoys being able to control the clay, and manipulate the final form by using changes in pressure.
The interaction between the sea and the land has been a major inspiration for colours, textures and form in his most recent work. The hues and tones captured in the sea; the sand; on pebbles, and in the rock formations have all influenced the pallette Craig has used in his work. He also looks to the movement of the water as the sea rolls onto the beach, or crashes on the rocks, when applying his glazes to his final forms: Many of his pieces are decorated to emulate seascapes or landscapes.
May/June 2018 was Frances Spice Ceramics:
Frances Spice is a Cornish ceramicist who creates beautiful white earthenware pieces, with an emphasis on surface pattern and gold lustre decoration.
Often decorated with subtle flowers and leaves, delicate lace is impressed onto the surface to create beautiful textured marks.
She introduced nails sticking out from the clay after finding old pieces of wood with the nails still in and wondering what they once were and where they came from.
The pots are built from slabs of white earthenware clay. She also models by hand details such as handles, spoons, birds and fish. Most of her work are left unglazed, she uses coloured slips, oxides, stains, ceramic pencils and gold lustre. On certain pieces such as the teapots, an organic food safe beeswax is rubbed into the exterior.
Her wok will be on show from the 9th of May until the 30th of June.
April/May 2018 was Kath Cooper Ceramics:
Kath Cooper Ceramics:
Kath Cooper is a ceramic artist based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, who has been working with clay for almost 30 years.
She graduated from Cardiff Art School in 1990, where she specialised in ceramics.
Her many years of experience have lead her to teach in various institutions, while stocking galleries and shops from her home studio. She currently works with Headway, a brain injury institution in Gloucester, who teaches ceramic classes to individuals with head injuries.
Kath has always been interested in pattern and colour, and is inspired by primitive ceramics, textiles and decorative folk art. Her newest work is exploring the interplay between the interior and exterior of larger hand-built vessels. The exterior is decorated with organic textures representing nature and the outside physical world, while the interior is painted with patterns, colour and hand-drawn representations of the spiritual world.
March/April 2018 was Liz Davis of Bird Can Fox:
Bird Can Fox:
Liz Davies who runs Bird Can Fox is a Bristol based ceramic artist. She sculpts primarily with porcelain and is inspired by animals, anthropomorphism, stories and illustration along with bold colours and patterns. Her aim is to bring a smile and sense of curiosity to anyone who views her work. She recently collaborated with Anthropologie and John Lewis on a range of animal based homeware utensils and decorations and is looking forward to running workshops for the first time this year at KILN, Bristol.
November/December 2107 were:
Rebecca Sheel Edelmann
Rebecca is a Danish ceramic artist and potter, living and working in Bristol with her partner the poet Joel Scarfe and their two daughters.
She has been making figures and sculptures from clay since she was 12, and had her first exhibition when she was 13.
She finds inspiration for her vases and other sculptures from the human figure, and from 16th and 17th century art, and contemporary literature.
Adrian Bates
Adrian is a ceramic artist based in Stroud, Gloucestershire.
He was drawn from an early age to calligraphic forms – particularly how the outer and inner curves of letterforms relate to, and interact with each other to give grace to the overall figure. The walls of the vessels he makes – defining inner and outer space – correlate to the body of letterforms.
He is also influenced by primal forms contained inside other 'vessels' – human, plant and animal – all containing life and defined by their interaction with nature.