When I first started pottery it was at a class and I was lucky enough to find a good one locally. I met some very experienced potters and one or two have offered me endless support and inspiration. I began because a potter friend saw some work I'd done experimenting with 'Green' printing. We had a go at making it work on pots.
Jo Arnold and I have popped ideas off at each other or worked peacefully together on different ideas, but we have never been bored. I have found a whole bunch of inspiring potters locally and joined the Anglian Potters (Links to websites on contact page.) Potters seem to be a very sociable bunch, it is a nice trait as painters often work in isolation or so I have found.
The Bowthorpe Potters in a suburb of Norwich inspired a whole community arts festival! Working in the community is vital if we are not to become a little clique of specialists. Art is for everyone that wants it. Making things is in our DNA. Often people are put off simply because ART has become such a specialism and not an every day trade. We worked together with old people who had trouble holding the clay and on a scheme for rehabilitating addicts. And with children and community groups. Holding and moulding clay is very simple. The problems come in with self doubt and critics in our minds...
I have worked with clay for several years now, I first tried crank clay because I wanted to build big - as big as the kiln would hold. Then a friend introduced me to paper clay... I've experimented a lot but in the end, it all starts for me with pinch pots.
I went back to pinch pots after being inspired by a Magdalena Odundo exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. She makes awesome pinch pots full of meaning and thought. But it all starts so simply and we have all tried it, You simply put a ball of clay in the palm of your hand and find a rythm....
"‘I’ve always equated clay with the
humanity that’s within us,
fragile like our bodies. It can tip over.
You have it on its toes, but if you push it
just slightly on the wrong pivot,
it will break your heart.’