Artist information
1978 London to Kathmandu on the magic bus
1981 Graduated from Bristol University, First class honours Theology
1983 Apprenticed to Alan Caiger-Smith at Aldermaston Pottery
1987 Set up Cherry Tree Pottery in Headley, making and decorating tin glazed earthenware
1994 To America. Set up Spindletop Studio near Stockton, N.J.
1995 Built wood fired salt kiln
2001 Back to England. Set up The Ewelme Pottery in Oxfordshire
Working in tin glazed stoneware and experimenting with carbon trap shinos and other reduction fired glazes.
2003 Bought a house in Charente, France and built anagama kiln
2022 Restored anagama kiln and started firing it with a team of potters from France and England
Named it Le Four du Couch as the cuckoo sang ceaselessly throughout the firing (in April).
The kiln is now fired for five days and nights over Easter every year.
Exhibition information
There will be a good range of ceramics on display in the gallery at Ewelme Pottery during May 2025.
I make three distinct types of pottery: all the pots are thrown on the wheel; some are tin glazed and decorated by hand, some are glazed with a carbon trap shino and reduction fired in a gas kiln and some are fired, unglazed, in a large anagama kiln in the Charente region of France. I will be firing this kiln at Easter with a team of nine potters. We fire for five days and nights, to a temperature of 1300/1320 C. The pots are decorated by flame and fly ash and sometimes emerge, violet and elemental, from the bed of embers in the heart of the fire. I will come straight back to Ewelme after the firing with as many pots as I can load into the car. Some are decorative - tall bottles and jars - but mostly the pots are designed to be used: mugs, jugs, vases, bowls and tankards. I also make large jars for the garden.