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Folk Roots, New Routes

Now in his 80th year, Clive Bowen ranks as the finest slipware potter working in Britain, feted in Japan and collected internationally. Alun Graves, senior curator at the V&A, takes stock of a career spanning over 50 years. For more than fifty years, Clive Bowen has made slipware at his … Read more

Ashes to Ashes: How the lowliest of materials became the height of taste

For the ancient Chinese, the discovery that wood ash could be made into glazes brought them the exquisite colours of imperial bronze and majesterial jade in a plastic medium. For Bernard Leach and his disciples (chief among them Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie) these pots were a revelation. With their own trials in … Read more

Koichiro Isezaki: Presence

Recently in conversation with Izesaki Kôichiro (b. 1974) discussing his first solo exhibition at Goldmark Gallery, he alluded to the experience of working with clay as being ‘one of presence with the clay and of being present with and through the process.’ Kôichiro feels clay is a living entity (ikimono) … Read more

Made in China: The Extraordinary Story of Jingdezhen

It is now a decade since the Goldmark film crew first visited Jingdezhen, China’s ‘Porcelain Capital’, to film the British-Japanese potter Takeshi Yasuda at work. He has had studios in the city for twenty years; this year he will be 80. But in Jingdezhen, as our film crew found out, … Read more

Ceri Richards: Sabines and Ceramics

Ceri Richards’ post-war period was a time of reflection, painting the interior scenes of his London studio and trying his hand at painted ceramics. But the discovery of a major new theme – and a new medium in which to explore it – would produce a flurry of fascinating, mythically … Read more

Rewilding Tradition

Anne Mette’s mission to unearth the hidden clays and minerals on the island of Bornholm shows that tradition need not be staid and sterile, writes Robin Holt. Anne Mette Hjortshøj’s originality is born from observing, remembering, and repeating tradition to a point where it becomes a unique and hard-won ‘giving … Read more

Akiko Hirai: Still Unfolding

High above the glaze-spattered floor of Akiko Hirai’s studio, Moon Jars roost on the shelves like tranquil, plump-bellied hens. The traditional Korean vessel – named for its milkish colour and rounded outline – is a signature piece for the artist, whose expressive corruptions of its centuries-old form have gifted the … Read more

Phil Rogers & Richard Coles in Conversation

Phil Rogers’ fifth Goldmark exhibition opened at the height of Covid lockdown. With no possibility of inviting people to the show, we instead brought the show to them with an online tour and talk with longtime friend and collector, the Reverend Richard Coles. Just weeks ahead of the republication of … Read more

Memories of an Apprentice: Florian Gadsby

A potter with an online following in the millions, Florian Gadsby spends much of his time in self-reﬂection. Here he turns his attention to the work of his former teacher, and memories of his extraordinary apprenticeship. I spent three years working alongside Lisa Hammond as one of her many apprentices. … Read more

Fire, Wood and Clay: What’s in an Aesthetic?

There can be no denying it: there’s something about wood-firing that produces special pots. But what is it about the wood-fired aesthetic (if there even is one) that captivates? Where does our appreciation for it begin? And, perhaps most important of all: is it still relevant today? Is the wood-fired … Read more

The White of the Moon

How the colour of light, snow and shamanic dance has shaped the Korean nation Sister Sun and Brother Moon There is an old tale in Korean folklore of a tiger who met a poor lady walking home. She had been working at a rich household, providing a dinner of rice-cakes. … Read more

Kang-hyo Lee, In Conversation

Korea, Lee Kang-hyo tells us, is a country made of mountains, run through with rivers, and full of gentle curves. In these interview extracts we learn more about the country and landscape that has shaped Kang-hyo’s outlook and the inspirations behind his monumental Onggi jars and renowned buncheong pots. Kang-hyo … Read more

The Remarkable Collection of Bill Ismay

Last Autumn, the York Museum opened the Yorkshire Tea Ceremony exhibition, showcasing the collection of the late Bill Ismay. An avid studio pottery enthusiast, Ismay built a staggering collection of over three thousand pieces over the course of three decades, all carefully curated in his small terraced house. Due to … Read more

A Beautiful Strangeness

It happens in an instant. She had picked up the plastic cup from the floor and, unthinking, in one motion, lent back and let it go, watching it hang in mid-air for a second, before seeing it tumble into what had looked like an empty sink. A sharp ring, followed … Read more

One of British Ceramics’ Greats

Richard Batterham was an exceptional potter whose like only comes along very occasionally. In 1981, Crafts magazine (No. 33) published an article by Richard Batterham, one of the few times he put pen to paper, at least as far as pottery is concerned. He wrote: ‘I am asked to write … Read more

Shells in Ceramics

Sebastian Blackie explores elusive answers to a simple question: who first used shells when firing their pots? When clay is heated to stoneware temperatures, in a kiln fired with wood, ash will combine with the clay to form a glaze. Fly ash contains the glass forming mineral silica, as well … Read more

Patterns for Production | Eric Ravilious

Ravilious’ ceramics for Wedgwood – not as well known, perhaps, as his fine and graphic art – have become a sort of holy grail for design collectors. They are applied design at its very best; quite rare and certainly rarefied.

Spontaneous Drawing

Geographically Clive Bowen seems more than appropriately sited as a potter – living and working at Shebbear, in the remoter Devon valleys near Great Torrington. He is close to where the great earthenware tradition of the North Devon coast once thrived, where he learnt to make pots at Michael Leach’s … Read more

Lisa Hammond: Urban Potter

Each Lisa Hammond pot has a life of its own, its own sense of renewal. They all offer their own pleasures, an intimacy that adds another dimension to the way we eat and drink, to the ceremonies of the everyday, to the space we occupy. In short, to the way … Read more

Akiko Hirai Getemono

My pots display a lot of marks and traces of past events. To describe them in a conventional and very simplified way, they are ‘dirty’ and ‘broken’. On the other hand, they can be described in a more sophisticated way as wabi-sabi, which refers to the beauty of imperfection and … Read more

Sake and Ceramics

‘No blossoms and no moon And he is drinking sake all alone’ Haiku by Matsuo Bashō A love of nature, and of being part of the group, are intensely important to the Japanese, so this little haiku is a picture of sadness. Sake is meant to be drunk with others, … Read more

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