Date of birth: 18 June 1933

Art Education: 1949 Harrogate School of Art, 1952 Slade School, 1957 Inst. Education, 1958 Postgraduate Ceramics, Central School London.

Studio work: 1958/9 Assistant at the Briglin Pottery London.

Teaching ceramics 1960 -1988, Latterly head of ceramics at Manchester Metropolitan University. Lecturer in Ceramics, Ceramic technology, History of ceramics, History of design.

Exhibitions: CPA continuous display since 1960, Leeds craft centre, Holmfirth Art Fair. 

Regional galleries: York, Scarborough, Kendal, Nottingham, Manchester, Aldeburgh, Carlisle, Liverpool, Hanley Stoke on Trent, Rufford, Winchester, Holmfirth.

Abroad: Tokyo, Copenhagen, Paris, Luxembourg, Madrid, Alfred USA

Council collections: London, Leicester, Buckinghamshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Hanley.

 

BIOGRAPHY, CPA NEWSLETTER

Given that both my parents were painters, I suppose it is not surprising that I ended up in the art school at Harrogate. I spent three enjoyable years there then three at the Slade School. In 1952 after I had moved to London my first experience of clay was an extra curricular fling at the new pottery at Harrogate. I loved the clay and enjoyed concentrating on a three dimensional form that did not need to represent anything except itself.
So after the Slade I took the option to explore further at the London Institute of Education, where Bill Newland ran a lively pottery. I am most grateful to Bill for his encouragement, enthusiastic teaching, broad vision and love of Picasso. In retrospect not only did I learn the fundamentals of ceramics and its possibilities but also a lot about education.

To learn more I continued at the Central School where at that time one could work next to Ruth Duckworth, Gordon Baldwin, Dan Arbied and Robin Welch. I was lucky and got work to support myself at the Briglin Pottery run by Bridget Appleby and Eileen Lewenstein, producing a new version of traditional majolica.
I remember a steep learning curve as I tried to decorate with a brush over unfired tin glaze. It was all a most valuable experience, running a business, organising a workshop, the technical control and quantity production. At the time it was a revelation to me how repetition of the same form enables one to select, develop and improve all aspects of a pot. But I do recollect an urgent order for hundreds of mugs, I found that there was a limit beyond which my mind numbed and the quality dropped.
I was delighted when my work started selling in the Briglin shop and later when I joined the new CPA in 1960.
Eventually I had to leave the Briglin and like many craftsmen with a family I decided to earn my living as a teacher, first at Slough then Scarborough School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University and part time at Bretton Hall. I always thought how lucky I was to be involved in something I enjoyed so much, the students were great and I owe them a thank you.

My early pieces were individual pots, hand built vessels, sculptural forms and when I was fortunate, specific orders such as fountains, convector heaters, lights, panels and wall sculptures. I was interested in the relationship between fired clay and the geological landscape. When I had moved to Scarborough I used to take sheets of clay out to press on the rocks and eroded cliffs of the seashore, then use them to make craggy slab built vessels. Another series of intersecting bowl forms originated in photographs and drawings of limestone potholes in the Yorkshire dales. Influences at this time were sculptors such as Henry Moore, Brancusi, Noguchi, and Arp.
All this work was fired to oxidised stoneware as to begin with an electric kiln was all I could use in my workshop. I particularly liked the quiet restrained qualities of clay and glaze, the dry, mat and textured surfaces. I explored the alchemy of ceramic materials trying to develop all my own glaze slip and colour recipes for the work in hand. Many of the most fruitful and varied experiments came from the teaching I did with History of Design students, helping them rediscover the clays and glazes of the historical pots they recreated. I have over 4000 test pieces so perhaps I was a touch over enthusiastic.

A new direction in my work appeared in the mid 70s, I wanted to use large strongly contrasted divisions of area on simple thrown forms, starting with broad stripes I tried to find how dynamic I could make the design without the pot visually falling apart. I was fascinated by the way the form changed the shape of the stripe and the stripe changed the form. One of the problems was how to combine what often started as a flat design with a three dimensional object, I tried direct pasting and various ways of wrapping, but some of the most interesting results came by projecting, as one would with a slide, on to the interior of a bowl stretching the design on the curve of the form...I remember one starting point was the shadow of a venetian blind cast across a table of pots. First world war camouflage, Bridget Riley, Albers and prehistoric Amerindian pots all had an influence. A theme in this development was my interest in asymmetry. After trying many different systems one that I settled on was the combinations of four squares with vertical, horizontal, diagonal left and right stripes. Because they differ, combining them always gave an asymmetrical design. Arranging them in sequences, rows, overlapping or placing them against striped backgrounds gave endless possibilities. Weave patterns using the same four directions going under or over each other like complex basketwork are another variation. Most of these pots used a reactive black slip which was engraved, masked or inlaid under a mat white glaze.
In my recent pieces on the same theme I am applying the glaze up to 4mm thick over the same slip. This can give spectacular cratered surfaces enough by themselves perhaps, but I also engrave through the glaze when it is still soft so that when fired I get the reaction between stripes and the craters. This is a breakthrough for me, to allow the material to make its own random contribution to the underlying design.

The last group of work developed out of the many and various experimental kilns I built with the students at Manchester. I always enjoyed the wood fired stoneware. So when I retired from teaching I started producing a range of domestic ware using raw glazes and concentrating on the fire flashed colours, setting the kiln, wadding and stacking pots, calculating the contribution the firing will make. Since 1992 I have had a house in France with ample space for wood, workshop, kiln and smoke where I can work in summer as a production potter, it would seem that here I have come full circle.