Simon Shaw Ceramics. Simon studied at Wirral College of Art and Design & Braintree College, Essex, after which he was employed in various UK workshops. After working abroad for several years, he returned to Merseyside in 1997 and established his own workshop.
Simon’s work is mainly thrown using stoneware clay with porcelain, Raku clay and glass additions. Barium based glazes give a textured, matt finish using a colour palette of blues, greens and lilacs.
Born by the sea and growing up in a village, Julie is particularly drawn to natural organic forms. Julie’s current work concentrates on slip casting, mainly with porcelain. The work expresses the tension of opposites, between soft forms and hard materials, between control and chance, and between fleeting movement and stillness. She seeks to capture quietness in reaction to the constant noise of modern living. Julie enjoys walking the line between sculpture and functional, dipping into each, sometimes combining the two, in a desire to create objects that want to be touched, loved and used.
Although my work is contemporary; it involves a deep exploration of the traditions of earthenware and English slipware. I feel an affinity for the artisan potters who inhabited the English countryside of the past, often making both functional and figurative ware, resulting in works of art for display and enjoyment.
Working from his workshop in Farndon, Cheshire, Willie produces an Earthenware range of thrown and hand built pieces, from egg cups to huge platters in vibrant Mediterranean colours. Over the years, a love of modelling clay has resulted in the evolution of hand built animal sculptures.
Willie has worked on several prestigious commissions, including the reconstruction of the medieval tiled floor in the Wakefield tower (H M Tower of London).
I graduated from Harrow in 1995 with a degree in workshop ceramics. In 200 I gained an MA in Applied Arts from the North Wales School of Art and Design in Wrexham. I am now based in Prestatyn, North Wales where I have a small workshop and an Anagama wood-kiln down on the coast.
I make work with the firing in mind, creating and making marks in the clay with the intention of catching the ash from the fire, which at sustained temperatures turns to glaze, thus pooling as it runs over the work. Working on large sculptural pieces gives me the opportunity to be more aggressive with my marks, sometimes ripping and piercing through the work. With smaller functional pieces I try to maintain the same aggressive impressions in a more contained manner.
The Clwydian Hills of Denbighshire, North Wales are the inspiration for my current work. The constant changes that the seasons bring along with man’s presence on the landscape, since the first Iron Age forts, to modern day farming. I am interested in the scars left on the hills by industry and by how quickly these abandoned places are ‘healed’ by nature.
Initially interested in Raku firing and the many colour variations I was able to produce, I am currently using an electric kiln and a limited colour palette of mainly oxides, believing that in my current work, less is more.
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