Bristol Clay 19

Bristol Clay

Rhian Jarman Emily Gibbard Lucy Winch Jessica Thorn

Emerging Potters – 26 Claire Lardner Burke January – March 2022

Claire Lardner Burke

Her road to clay has been quite a long and winding one. In 1993 she was offered a place at Bristol University to do an Art Foundation but never took it up as she joined the young traveller movement of the 90s and for almost a decade lived a nomadic, outside, "hippy" lifestyle through Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Everywhere she went she made things; jewellery, clothes, hats, to earn her way and was constantly surrounded and influenced by nature, other cultures and the creative lifestyle of everyone around her. She lived in caves, on beaches, in teepees, in the wilderness, and in the mountains.

It was an incredibly informative time of life. In 2001 she came back to London where she was born. Never intending to stay in London, the big city, but life doesn't always work out how you imagine. She got a job working for a small charity in Kentish Town called Rise Phoenix that provided all sorts of arts projects for the local inner city children. There she ran workshops, after school clubs, holiday clubs and camping trips to remote places to encourage the children to find a creative connection to nature. They were a small team and she was extremely happy during those years. Working creatively with children was a joy, but she was struggling with her own creative journey and try as she might couldn't find a medium that she felt really connected with. She began to wonder if there was one for her at all.

In 2008 she joined the Putney School of Art's ceramic studio. It was the most wonderful surprise to discover a love and connection to clay that she had not experienced before with any other medium. From then on she was hooked.

For the first two years all she made were tiny pinch pots which she experimented on continually with textures, oxides, slips and glazes. Straight away knowing she wanted to create small pots that resembled the natural world.

She was particularly fascinated by the beautiful, unique marks and colours of things as they weathered and aged. Much influenced by Lucie Rie and her delicate forms and wonderfully pitted glazes and also by having access to a gas kiln and the beautiful effects of reduction firing. After those first two years she was taught to throw by John Dawson at Putney and became obsessed with throwing bowls. Culminating in winning the throwing prize at the end of year exhibition in 2013.

Then in 2015 she left Putney and moved to The Kiln Rooms in Peckham Rye, a member's studio, and went from one day a week to 3 days a week, which was a bit like heaven. She developed a way of layering oxides, slips and glazes over each other multiple times that created an unpredictable organic-looking beauty in each piece that she loved and has been refining this process ever since. Website: www.clairelardnerburke.co.uk Instagram: @clairelardnerburke Facebook: clbceramics