Pot photos

Have spent a fair bit of time taking photos of my more recent pots, all small scale, not got round to firing any of the coil pots yet, due largely to the limited access to a kiln, though hope to have my electric kiln wired up in the next few weeks!! Can't wait. In the meantime, you can see my photos at:
http://alistairwillshawceramics.weebly.com/

 

 

 

Coiling's the way

Though still fresh to this new, and seemingly fantastic form of pottery construction, and yet to have any of my first attempts fired, I have taken to coiling with great vigour, and whilst I used to produce many a small bowl and the odd medium sized vase,  my throwing skills are still too limited to allow me to make anything larger without collapse.  However, I have now coiled a series of largish pots. all standing around 12-14 inches high, and up to 10 inches in diameter, and appear to be limited only by the size of the kiln, or the available amount of clay.

My most recent coil pot (shown left) is 14 x 9 inches, and is still drying out as I write. The discovery of coiling led to me carry out a little research to investigate which other potters mainly use this technique. Pinterest is a wonderful resource, and has been responsible for bringing to my attention some fantastic potters, like Toshiko Takaezu, Ashraf Hanna, John Ward and Monica Young and Sarah Purvey, all producing quite large scale work using hand building techniques, either coiling, pinching or slab building. The scale is a huge attraction for me, though I am still to figure out why. Follow my Pinterest boards at:

https://uk.pinterest.com/alwillsha/ceramics-inspiration/

https://uk.pinterest.com/alwillshaw/ceramics/

As we are lucky enough to live in Cornwall, on a recent trip to St. Ives, I was able to pop into the New Craftsman Gallery, and was delighted to see, up close, work by John Ward. It remains a mystery to me how he manages to produce such fine and delicate work, using the same basic techniques as Sarah Purvey, who, by contrast creates beautifully bold and robust work. 

 

Oval Pot with Shaped Rim and Green Banded Design by John Ward

Landscape Series – Visceral Form 2015 by Sarah Purvey

Turning Points

Towards the end of my ten week series of sessions with Richard Phethean, I was lucky enough to make the winning bid on an old momentum wheel on Ebay. There were two reasons for my auction success, firstly because momentum wheels tend to be old, are very basic and fairly uncommon, and possibly not overly desirable to most potters, (most of whom, for some reason, seem to prefer the silent reliability of top of the range electric wheels), and secondly, therefore, because I was the only bidder, giving my winning a certain inevitability. In fact, I was able to make an offer on the item, which, despite being considerably less than the 'Buy it Now' price, was readily accepted by the seller. This was, to my way of thinking, a great step forward, not only because I could now start to practice at home again, but also because momentum wheels are particularly suitable for producing large scale pots, and are preferred by some the potters I most admire. Apart from the fact I had to travel to Ludlow to collect the wheel, and subsequently cut the frame in half just to get it into my studio space, I was chuffed to bits, when finally, bolted back together, I was able to use it for the first time. Of course, since the showing of the BBC's Throw Up series, potters wheels of any description have doubled in price, so I was even luckier than I originally thought, to have bought it the week before the first episode.

Having amended the wheelhead to accept bats, I have grown to love my wheel, and have used it regularly since I got it. In fact, I now produce almost all my work on it, preferring it to the electric wheels at my evening course venue. It quickly got to the stage where I was producing so many pots that it was becoming a little awkward as I still had no means of firing them, other than to take them to my Tuesday evening class.

It was not too long after getting my new wheel, that I decided to try some coil building. Having originally been rather scathing of any hand building techniques, considering them to be rather too basic to produce professional results, I was rather taken aback to discover that not only does coiling offer greater control, and versatility, the slow pace is very therapeutic.