Turning Earth Studio 31

What the pandemic has changed

By Stella Cassanelli, Turning Earth

The decision to expand Turning Earth studios into new communities came during lockdown when it looked like we might go under. Our users in Hoxton and Leyton fought hard to keep the studios afloat, providing critical financial support before the government loans kicked in.

Their generosity really moved us, and all the messages of support helped us to see just what the studio meant to them. However, many of them couldn’t easily return to the studio even as the government lifted restrictions because the commute was just too much in the new world that Covid had created. We made the commitment then that, if we survived, we would open Turning Earth studios within an easy walk or cycle for more people.

Our management team live in Tottenham, so we are very interested in this area. While we are planning to open other sites in London over the next couple of years (next stop Highgate) we will continue to do our own creative work at the new West Green studio.

Tallie, our Creative Director, saw the West Green building while walking along Downhills, while on one of her post-lockdown walks. It’s a beautiful Victorian factory with a saw-toothed roof and even from the street you could see that it would have incredible natural light. When randomly searching it out online, she found that it had just been listed for rent. It feels fitting that the commitment to bringing Turning Earth into more communities in the wake of the pandemic means that we now have one on our own doorstep.

The West Green studio has already proven more popular than we could have expected. We sold out all our class at the very beginning of January and had to add more. So now we have over 100 people a week on our courses. Around 100 people have signed up as open-access members so far and the majority of these people are living locally.

Fire & Flourish

Alumni Showcase

Celebrating the Achievements of Morley College Ceramics Graduates 2017-2021

The beautifully refurbished Morley Gallery, in London’s Waterloo, recently hosted an exhibition which celebrated the eclectic talents of Morley Colleges HND Ceramics Graduates. Morley first made its move into Higher Education in 2017, and since then its tutors, students and graduates have formed a tightly knit community; brought together through their HND Ceramics course and also by their collective experiences in education under lockdown. The small year-group sizes and focus on advanced practical craft skills, ceramic material knowledge, design development and use of digital technology has evidently produced some amazing results.

This exhibition showcased striking conceptual and sculptural pieces, innovative functional ware and decorative ceramic objects. The work exemplified the individuality of the makers who were nurtured on the course The Alumni have all gone on to develop their ceramics practices and have continued to build creative careers since graduating. Students have set up their own or shared studioworkshops, topped-up to degree level, or have gained direct entry onto MA’s at Farnham and London’s Royal College of Art, a few are now teaching adults themselves.

Exhibition ran from 16th to 31st March 2022.

Image: Jane Wilson

Claudette Forbes Ann Gardner

(Left) Size: 26cm x 28cm. The porcelain piece is high fired and polished.

During lockdown Anne created a series of quiet, reflective, porcelain sculptures exploring the subtlety of light and shadow across a surface. Origami’s minimalist aesthetic has been the inspiration behind this geometric piece.

mailto:annegardnerdesigns@gmail.com

(Below) lip cast stoneware fashion and fast food branded cows, 15cm, 7cm, 15cm. Cow on tongue, 23cm, 13cm. Photo: Valerie Bernardini

Claudette’s work draws on her life experiences as a child of Jamaican parents growing up in inner city Bristol. She seeks to test interpretations of the present day whilst producing tangible objects that contain a certain beauty and references the past.

“Poor Cow” is a collection of fashion and fast food branded ceramic cows and illustrated milk bottles. The collection's genesis was a family trip to Jamaica some 20 years ago; Montego Bay's first McDonald's had just opened. In a neighbouring field stood a solitary cow.

“I like to use humour in my work, even when addressing serious, topical issues. The process of making this collection informed my conceptual development, leading me to reflect on our consumption of the cow and its environmental impact.”

Cathy Green

(Right) The sculpture is slipcast in sections from white stoneware clay, glazed in a satin matt glaze. The individual sections are slotted over a metal pole. It is1m tall.

“My current body of work is based around the rhombic triacontahedron. The sculptures combining different colours and sizes of this basic form as a kind of constructional puzzle. They are inspired by the geometry and patterns in nature. Multi-faceted, they play with light, colour, shadow, and the relationship between positive and negative space. Modular sections are each slip cast individually then joined to form larger structures some of which can appear to defy gravity." cathy@greentribe.co.uk

Valerie McLean

Material: Smokefired Terracotta and Patinated Bronze Dimensions: ceramic piece, 20cm by 15 cm, bronze: 11cm by 8cm Photo credit is @valeriebernardini

I use metal and clay to create abstract volumes inspired by human dwellings, and to explore themes of identity and otherness. Each piece is unique but shares with the other a sense of origin. In this game of contrast and complementarity, the choice of material is important and so is my decision to keep tool marks. Beyond contrasting materials and textures, this composition reminds us of our universal need for shelter and our shared capacity for making and using tools. It is for me a symbolic reminder that however we try to clad ourselves and others with arbitrary defining physical or cultural attributes, when everything is stripped bare, we are all just that one thing: human.

vvgmclean@gmail.com

Fiona Bruce

Washed Ashore: The pieces I have made here are inspired by my many years of beachcombing and in particular, long walks on the beautiful Scottish west coast. I have used porcelain, oxides and slips to create pieces which evoke the patterns and textures of beach objects. Fragile shells, marine creatures and drift wood fragments are washed ashore by the tide, bleached and weathered by sun and salt waves. Working with thin, stretched porcelain has enabled me to capture nature’s qualities of fragility, lightness and strength.

Annie Cushing

Annie Cushing @cushingannie

I work mainly with slip cast porcelain and Parian creating geometric and abstract forms with optical illusion for intrigue.

This set ‘Zigzag’ of octahedrons references the fluidity and high energy movement of molecules in the firing process which results in work that is very still.

Parian 22cm Slipcast with decals.

Sue Gunn

(Above) The ever changing landscape of our world, whether as a result of natural phenomena or the impact of man’s actions, is the inspiration for this collection.

High fired porcelain is combined with fractured and bubbled glazes which evoke images of dried and crumbled earth, lava flows and coastal erosion.

These hybrid pieces combine the sculptural with a functional aesthetic and can be used as holders for beeswax ritual candles.

@suegunnartist https://www.suegunnartist.com/ Photo: Valerie Bernardini

Valerie Bernardini

(Below) "Each piece is a one-off piece, very light and fragile, hand-made in porcelain, unglazed. My photography and ceramic works are intrinsically linked and grow from each other. Pictures and objects inspire each other yet retain separate identities. My work catches a moment of the past, forever gone, and yet stilled.

The frontier between past and present, life and non-life, is blurred, inducing a feeling of nostalgia."

email: valeriebernardini@me.com

https://valeribernardini5e42.myportfolio.com

Instagram : valerie-bernardini