I have been making ceramics for forty one years. Nowadays, I work with stoneware and porcelain, mostly throwing (and sometimes altering) pots on the wheel. Once a year, at Easter, I fire a large anagama for five days and nights with a team of other potters. The pots are slipped but not glazed; decorated by fly ash and flame on clay. The effects can be dramatic. When in Oxfordshire I fire in a gas kiln - these pots, mostly designed to be used, are glazed with carbon trap shinos and decorated with liquid wax, sprinklings of rose ash and, gold lustre applied by brush.