Tanners Lane will feature work by Industrial Sculpture Peter Shrimpton as it leads you to the Chicken Run Studio and Garden.
My Studio and Garden will be open for Art Weeks as part of the EYNSHAM ART WEEKS TRAIL.
The garden is a place, to sit and relax, taking your time. to enjoy.
In my studio I will be able to explain and demonstrate the equipment I use and the processes involved in my hand-built and wheel thrown work.
Refreshments will be available.
I work predominantly with stoneware clay that will take the heat of the oven and the extreme weather outside. I love throwing large open forms and glazing that contrasts with the textured clay body . My work includes thrown bowls with expressive lips; an animal on the side; jugs with ‘Hand’-les; platters of whole imprinted leaves with decorative coils or even a mouse or snail. Animals and birds, both true to life and sometimes, quirky, have featured in my thrown and hand-built work. Larger animals or birds come alive, with a flick of an ear or tilt of a head.
I also make Raku. I love the organic nature of this pottery firing method, that is so instantaneous, it is pure chemistry in action with the fluxing glaze and the reduction of Oxygen. I am influenced by the native New Zealand bush and the wildlands of England.
I have discovered a seam of ‘Roman Clay’ nearby. Dug from the Earth, it echoes the past, as I clean it and mould it into shape with my hands as people would have done 2000 years ago . Full of iron oxide it first turns orange in fire and then under reduction a deep black. I have discovered it is stable to stoneware temperatures and produces a deep crimson clay - something our forebears may not have achieved with their crude kilns and fire pits.
I am never happier than when I am in my studio making and creating. Come and see for yourself and have a taste of the fun.