Issue 32
July -
September 2023
The magazine is an independent journal. The publishers do not accept any liability for errors or omissions. The views expressed in the features are not necessarily those of the editor. Reproduction in part or whole must be with the consent of the editor. All rights reserved. 2023.
Welcome to the new edition of the magazine.
Here in the UK it is very busy with student degree shows and two Biennale shows. This year, following the change of their MA courses from 2 -years to 1- year there are two cohorts of students presenting work.
Given the sheer volume of makers we have tried to give an overview of the shows and not go into any specific detail. It would have been mean to leave anyone out given all the hard work they have gone through.
The one featured maker in the magazine is Louise Frances Smith who is working in Margate, Kent. She is looking to explore her environment and put a new perspective on ceramics.
Seems to be lots of new books about at the moment, and three of them are reviewed.
As you will have guessed we have profiled our first robot and artificial intelligence. The results were somewhat devastating, but good fun – see the results in the London Biennale. The day I went to the show the robot had gone for repairs. Says it all really.
Although not featured here due to space the Potfest outdoor shows have been a great success according to the images by Wendy Kershaw on Instagram, and studio selling shows, such as Kiln Rooms and Turning Earth are very popular and sell well.
Ying Chen RCA
Established in 2016 by Sir John Sorrell CBE and Ben Evans CBE, London Design Biennale promotes international collaboration and the global role of design. Since its inception the Biennale welcomes the world’s most exciting and ambitious designers, innovators and cultural bodies to the capital.
The fourth edition of London Design Biennale took place from 1 to 25 June 2023, artistically directed by the Nieuwe Instituut the Dutch national museum and institute for architecture, design and digital culture. Taking over the entirety of Somerset House, including the Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court and River Terrace, participants from across the globe will be invited to imagine and enact new forms of international cooperation and participation including with each other—through the medium of design.
Eureka was a part of the Biennale and is a showcase of design-led innovation changing our world from leading research centres.
It spotlighted the ground-breaking creative thinking taking place inside the UK’s university research departments for our society and the economy, while examining the role of institutions in nurturing the next generation of problem solvers.
Together with London Design Biennale, the exhibition was showcased at Somerset House in June to address ideas around sustainability, health, aging and community cohesion that are in an incubator to start-up phase.
The Biennale is not always the centre of ceramics but an interesting insight into what concerns artists from many countries.
But this year we were treated to AiDa Robot (Oxfordshire) and a body of work of ceramic art that was beautifully produced but had no discern able function at all.
Curated by Lucy Seal and project director Aidan Meller with special guest the Ai- Da Robot.
The catalogue describes Ai-Da as an artist in residence at Porthmeor Studios in St Ives, and was influenced by the St Ives School, Bauhaus, Picasso’s Madoura works, Bloomsbury’s Omega Workshops and the Leach Pottery.
Her designs evoke the increasing dematerialisation of our lives. The household items of the installation exist in the physical realm but also in the digital. The development and use of AI is in its infancy, but there is no question it will change lives irrevocably.
Or put another way the display was a very well produced piece of fun?
The Royal College of Art has been recognised internationally as the leading Post Graduate school for Art and Design for some nine years.
This year, following the change of their MA courses from 2-years to 1 -yea r there are 2 cohorts of students presenting work. Students who started in 2022 on the 1- year course and students who started in 2021 who are completing the last ever 2- year MA course.
The 1-year students showed work at the Battersea Campus from 30 June - 3 July, and the 2 -year students will be hosting their Graduate Show at the Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London from 13 - 16 July. Shown here is a mix of the work across both years.
Zoey Han
Wet porcelain, glass, plastic, string needle, multimedia 10cm x 4cm
Chloe Lennon
Disequilibrium
Ceramic and various glazes
Untitled
Porcelain, thrown and altered with additions
Saffron Summerfield
Angel from an Antique Land
Shinhye You Till Death Tears Us Apart Black clay
Jeanne Francois
Part of a house
Terracotta and wild clay from the Thames Adi Avidani
Dissolving Lines
Slip casting porcelain, stains and sprayed glaze
Jihyun Kim
Salty Fairy Ring
Porcelain, High-fired colour stain, Gloop glaze
Li Ying The Fantasy Feast
Porcelain, bread, cocoa butter, chocolate, popcorn, food coloring
Mitakshara Chaudhary
Grey stoneware clay, Borosilicate rods, Reichenbach glass rods
Threshold 1
Stoneware glazed, white stoneware, terracotta and crank
Gilded stoneware
Purity of true feelings
Earthenware, underglaze and gloop glaze
Unraveling Collectives & Dissolving Identities Porcelain
Abi Freckleton (above)
Just sprung ground
Porcelain welly prints, glaze, puddle mud in porcelain, puddle mud in stoneware, glaze stretched digital transfer of forest undergrowth photograph
Jan Nardini
Dancing Rocks
Parian porcelain cast rocks with cast glass mounted on stoneware porcelain base
Dean Mueller
When I grow up I want to be (a builder)
Earthenware (bonding plaster) stoneware (perilite)
Yaerin Pyun
Heterotopia
Porcelain, bone china, stoneware, stain and glaze
Ash Glazes - Techniques and Glazing from Natural Sources. Third Edition
Phil Rogers Hardback Herbert Press
192pp £30 9781789940947
Forever curious and eager to learn new things about ceramics, Phil Rogers constantly tinkered with clay bodies, glaze formulae and approaches to firing. This volume is his seminal work on transforming ash into glaze: an essential text for all potters and ceramicists with additional relevance today with its focus on prioritising the use of natural resources.
Ash Glazes examines the practicalities of collecting and testing wood ashes, demonstrates the process of making them into glazes and offers a step -by -step guide to using them to decorate your pots.
This edition, updated and revised by Hajeong Lee Rogers, is a celebration of pottery at its best. Starting with an introduction to the history of ash glazes, then moving o n to a wide range of practical advice and methods, the book is enlivened by photographs of the work of potters from around the world, who use ash in colourful and imaginative ways. It provides true inspiration for working potters and delight for all those interested in contemporary ceramics.
Paul Bailey got on a Hi gh Speed Train and went to see
The world of ceramics has managed to survive the pandemic it would seem, but there has been a fundamental change. The big London shows are almost as before, except for the cancelation of some shows. What does seem to be stronger are the regional organisations and the commercial shows who have expanded their national coverage. Where does this leave many towns throughout the country who are fighting to be relevant to their community and survive with their integrity in what they are trying to achieve in their work?
Situated in the centre of the old part of Margate in Kent and just down the road from the Turner Contemporary you will find The Margate School. It is situated in an old Woolworths shop, and still bears the name. This is where Louise had her show
‘Sargassum Tide’. The School is now an independent art school opened in 2019 and has studio spaces for hire and a range of arts events. Funding is partly through the Arts Council UK.
Originally she came from the Kent Medway town of Gillingham and then moved to Lower Halstow just outside Sittingbourne. After school she did a fine arts degree at Kingston University, and it was here that she was inspired by a visiting lecturer who had recently completed a ceramics residency in Denmark.
Then a move to London and a three-year studio membership period at the ‘Kiln Rooms’ studios in Peckham, with the influential maker and studio owner Stuart Carey.
Next on this long journey of finding her role in ceramics was a two year diploma course at Citylit studying ceramics. Then it was the move to Margate and renting a studio space in 2018. Later, in 2021 this led to an Arts Council grant to ‘Develop Creative Practice’ projects. Also during this period she was recommended to Kate Malone who had just moved to a new studio in Kent by non other than Stuart Carey. There she worked on an archive project for Kate Malone. The successful relationship has continued to this day.
Her show Sargassum Tide features work made using wireweed seaweed and Pacific oysters two non-native species but currently to be found in numbers on the coastline due to climate change. She collected these materials from the Thanet coastline to create her experimental work that shows the repercussions of human intervention on our fragile coastal ecosystems.
In 2021 she received an Arts Council England 'Developing Your Creative Practice' grant which was looking at making her practice more sustainable by using local materials such as seaweed and chalk, she also learnt how to dig and process local clay (learning from an online workshop by Studio Alluvium and mentorship sessions with Nina Salsotto Cassina / Unurgent Argilla, and Rosanna Martin).
There isn't much clay in Thanet so she continued to experiment with seaweed which led to making biomaterials. There is a lot of clay in other areas of Kent so she will be continuing again researching clay again later this year.
At the end of 2022 an Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant allowed her to exhibit this work at Collect Open the flagship show for the Crafts Council, and then show this new body of work at The Margate School including running a series of workshops .
Since the 2020 lockdowns she has been using local materials in the work to deepen the connection between it and the landscape where she takes inspiration from. This has led to working with waste materials and creating biomaterials. Sargassum Tide includes a hanging installation made of individual moulded pieces of wireweed seaweed bioplastic that she has sewn together to create one piece. The form is inspired by bryozoa which are tiny colony creatures that live on seaweed or rocks and create intricate patterns as the colony grows. She would like the work to inspire others to look closely at nature and the surroundings and question the materials we use.
Sargassum Tide also features a display cabinet of objects she has made from crushed Pacific oyster shells and clay works that have been glazed with seaweed ash and oyster shells. The forms of the pieces in the cabinet are inspired by natural and manmade objects she found on walks along the Thanet coastline.
She describes her own work as – ‘bioplastic which is a type of material which is bio-degradable and how to use seaweed creatively’.
Earlier this year she was chosen to bring her project to the international arts exhibition in London called ‘Collect’ which was held at Somerset House on the Strand, London. Maybe a case of local projects with local people having a voice in an international setting.
https://www.instagram.com
@lou_frances
‘The form is inspired by bryozoa which are tiny colony creatures that live on seaweed or rocks and create intricate patterns as the colony grows’.
The start of the student shows and Central Saint Martins in London was once again one of the high points in the summer for the creative industries. After all the pain of Lockdown it was an event where students could at last talk to the people who had come to support their work.
What is so impressive about the college is the sheer divergence of all the students, with some 27 graduating this year. Apart form the Royal College of Art I can’t think of any other college internationally that can command such a following, and attract students who are there to follow their development in ceramics.
Each student has a story of their selfdevelopment but it would take a great deal of space to be able to accommodate their stories, so here I have tried to capture an overview of the evening I attended.
Much of the credit for it’s success needs to go to the course leader Anthony Quinn who has managed to retain the values of the college while at the same time take advantage of the superb facilities. No easy task when many courses nationally are under threat.
What next? For some it is a MA course and for others they will join the international art market.
We wish them well, which ever direction they take next.
Rhythm
Living vessels –
Beyond
Radiant Earth
Maxime King
How
A testament to the Earth’s sufferings
Published 6 April 2023, with 919
Illustrations £65 hardback
Published by Thames & Hudson
A magnificent catalogue of the V&A's collection of twentieth-century and contemporary British ceramics.
In his introductory essay, Alun Graves, Senior Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, provides all lovers of ceramics – collectors, practitioners, historians and those interested in modern and contemporary art and crafts – with the historical context, documenting the medium’s shift into an expressive, and sometimes interventionist, art form.
An extensive visual catalogue, Studio Ceramics is the primary reference for 20thcentury and contemporary British studio ceramics, and a record of the national collection of British ceramics held at the V&A.
Contemporary ceramicists working in Britain, including Rachel Kneebone, Grayson Perry and Edmund de Waal, are part of a broader international group of artists experimenting with clay, considering how it intersects and works in dialogue with other art forms and with culture at large.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Kate Malone, Snow Lady Gourd, stoneware, 2008 (cat. 647) (top left)
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Akiko Hirai, large moon jar: Eclipse Night, stoneware with ‘landscape inclusions’, 2019 (cat. 452)
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Grayson Perry, Matching Pair, ceramic, 2017 (cat. 767)
All over the south of England, in tiny villages, town centres and seaside cottages, artists from the Southern Ceramic Group are getting ready for the highlight of the year, their exhibition at Bishop’s Kitchen at …
They are busy wedging clay, throwing pots and experimenting with glazes to come up with something unique and original.
For two weeks in August, 29th July – 13th August, they show the world their latest creations. The work will be as varied as they are, fr om functional tableware to abstract sculptures. This is the place to find that special gift. Sixty potters and over 600 pieces to view and buy.
Bishop’s Kitchen is easy to find, right in the city centre, next to the Cathedral; history on the doorstep – not to mention the shops and carparks within easy reach. Enter it in your diary.
The British Ceramics Biennial takes place in Stoke-on-Trent from 23 September to 5 November 2023.
www.britishceramicsbiennial.com Instagram: @british_ceramics_biennial Facebook: /britishceramics.biennial Twitter: @BCBFestival
For six weeks there will be exhibitions, installations and events are shown against the backdrop of the city’s industrial heritage. From spotlighting the UK’s leading ceramicists to introducing work by international artists and fresh new talent, the BCB Festival is a celebration of the creative potential of clay for storytelling, playfulness, risk-taking and activism. Artists for 2023 include Osman Yousefzada, William Cobbing, Emilie Taylor and Stephen Dixon.
For 2023, BCB introduces a new Festival hub, All Saints Church in Hanley. This historic Arts and Crafts church - built ‘by the potters, for the potters’ - will be home to BCB’s flagship exhibitions Award and Fresh. Award presents major new work by 10 of the UK’s most innovative ceramic artists competing for a £10,000 prize: Rebecca Appleby, Ranti Bam, Copper Sounds, Rebecca Griffiths, Dan Kelly, Elspeth Owen, Carrie Reichardt, Mella Shaw, Jasmine Simpson and Nicola Tassie. Fresh is a platform for 25 emerging talents from the UK and Ireland.
Stephen Dixon – Istoriato culture and conflictAlongside these exhibitions, BCB’s first People and Place Commission will see artist Emilie Taylor interpret and respond to the postindustrial landscape of Staffordshire and the people who live there. Known for her large-scale ceramics, Emilie will use heritage craft processes to create a group of six pots that reference Stoke-on-Trent’s iconic bottle kilns, each one adorned with sgraffitoed narratives.
On the church altar, 2021 Award winner Stephen Dixon will create Istoriato: culture and conflict, a large- scale allegorical tile panel inspired by the churches and vessels in renaissance and prerenaissance Italy. The work builds on his Italian research examining the interconnectedness of culture and conflict across history and our own troubled times.
Elsewhere in the Festival hub will be a celebration of new talent from Fresh Talent artists: Dorcas Casey’s sculptures formed around stories, myths and dreams; Nico Conti’s playful exploration of 3D printing; and Leora Honeyman’s series of ‘witches’ stools that draw links between the cultural rejection of neurodivergence and the persecution of women with healing and magical power. There will also be a showcase of work by recent graduates and researchers from Staffordshire University.
Building on BCB’s long-standing collaborations in Stoke-on-Trent, The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery will be home to a new commission by critically acclaimed multidisciplinary artist and writer Osman Yousefzada, whose practice is informed by migratory experience and the rituals that shape our lives. For the Festival, Osman will present an installation, Embodiments of Memory, that explores traditions associated with loss, transcendence and memorialisation.
by Kylie and Tiffany Johnson
Earth & Fire by Kylie and Tiffany Johnson
Publishing on 24 August in UK by Thames & Hudson
£40 RRP available at bookshops and at: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/earth -fire -modern -potterstheir-tools-techniques-and -practices -tiffanyjo hnson/7417460?ean=9781760763527
ISBN 9781760763527
This is a comprehensive and large book looking at the work of individual potters in Australia working today. It looks at the studio and driving forces behind each maker and is a fascinating insight. Anyone looking for different ceramic influences this book is a must.
In the introduction Johnson recalls, “To create a book like this is no small task, particularly when deciding whose work to profile. ..” our aim is to celebrate ceramics and show how these artists create, why they work with clay, and where they pursue their craft”.
The two sisters selected artists from all backgrounds, ethnicities and locations around Australia. Many of the makers they have known for many years, and others they have admired from afar. They talked to career potters whose work has spanned decades and to those who have only been working for a short time.
In late June students from around the country attending the ceramic courses at the different universities have their own degree shows, but then come to New Designers for one vast show. It depicts the very best in the young makers who are about to start their careers or go on to a MA course.
For some reason this year the new of universities attending had been dramatically reduced. No idea why? Impact of Covid, dramatic cost of taking shows to London?
So, what we have here is a brief overview of those attending, and thanks to all the students who were enthusiastic and attentive.
E: paulbailey123@googlemail.com
Contribu tions to the gallery of work from makers and students are welcome and will be included wherever possible on a first come basis. Send to the email address. The editor’s decision is final.
© Paul Bailey 2023