Folk Roots, New Routes

May 8, 2024May 8, 2024 by Jay

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 pottery near Shebbear in north … Read more

Masterclass | Jean-Nicolas Gérard | Throwing Tall Beakers

June 15, 2024July 16, 2021 by Jay

Widely regarded as the potter’s potter, Gérard makes freely thrown and decorated domestic slipware ceramics. Watch Jean-Nicolas throwing and shaping a tall beaker at his studio in Valensole, Southern France.

In Conversation | Doug Fitch

June 15, 2024March 3, 2021 by Jay

A Zoom chat during the 2020 Covid pandemic. Slipware potter Doug Fitch reveals the story behind the moulds for his beautiful large platters. When Michael Cardew’s Wenford Pottery closed in 2004, some twenty years after his death, Doug Fitch went to visit the dilapidated premises. Looking round the dust-filled attic he stumbled upon a pile of moulds, ‘abandoned and covered in guano’. Purchased from the new owner and relocated to Fitch’s studio, these moulds have been recommissioned – and with magnificent results. The conversation is interspersed with footage of Doug moulding and decorating these dishes plus a look at a few of his ad hoc tools.

Exhibition | Jean-Nicolas Gérard

June 15, 2024February 18, 2021 by Jay

An opportunity to enjoy an extensive walk around French slipware master, Jean-Nicolas Gérard’s 2020 Goldmark exhibition. Max Waterhouse introduces us to Gérard’s new range of white ware and talks us through a variety of very individual, whimsical forms and expressive, animated decorative techniques.

Featured Ceramics | Large Square Platters by Jean-Nicolas Gérard

October 12, 2020January 19, 2018 by Abu Morshed Julash

These huge square dishes, with rumpled, up-turned edges, become vineyards or lavender fields in miniature: sgraffito scars mimic row upon row of grape vines.

In Conversation | An Interview with Potter Walter Keeler

October 12, 2020November 1, 2017 by Abu Morshed Julash

Ahead of our major exhibition of ceramics by renowned British potter Walter Keeler, we headed over to Monmouth to meet him in his studio.

Profile | Jean-Nicolas Gérard: The Potter’s Potter

December 31, 2020August 8, 2016 by Abu Morshed Julash

Jean-Nicolas Gérard has been working from his studio in the south of France for over 15 years now, producing loose, lively terre vernissée – the French term for slip-decorated earthenware – and enlivening the local Provençal traditions of slipware pottery.