Portfolio

This portfolio is a aggregation of all the relevant blogposts elsewhere on the site to provide a single click/page view.

Overtly Japan 

Bamboo Star & Swimming Carp

The circular bottle vase, one of a series of vessels in my last firing; a new shape, entirely wheel thrown and glazed with my favorite floating blue glaze.

These are two of my latest pieces made around April 2026, both are heavily influenced by the Japanese esthetic I have discussed before. The jar, especially , is an interpretation of a woodblock print of a swimming carp made by Ohara Koson.

The two plates with swimming carp and frog on a lily pad. are very heavily influenced by Ohara Koson the famous Japanese woodblock artist. These were recent experiments for me, using underglaze painting techniques on wheel thrown stoneware plates.

Dragon Moon; another Japanese influenced bottle vase, slab built, from early 2025.

Lidded Jars

The lidded jar is one of my favorite forms, bordering on the edge of functional and purely decorative. The interplay between the surface pattern or texture and the glaze adds to the means of expression and complements the form itself.

The image above shows several of my favorite jars and is the one picture that usually invokes the response, "very Japanese looking".

The second image is of a collection of taller more cylindrical shaped vessels in a jade green glaze.

In this selection we can see the beginnings of my fascination with the form and fit of the lid of each of vessels. In many ways this is the most technical part of the making and design process.

This piece demonstrates the combination of several aspects of the design of my jars;

• The overall "bellied" form
• The surface texture - random hand carved 
• The glaze colour and its interaction with the surface
• The lid fitting inside the gallery in the top of the vessel
• The handle of the lid a rough formed circular knob
• The foot ring which elevates the vessel up from the display surface.

Another lidded jar in the celadon green glaze demonstrating a larger form and a regular pattern texture which is created at the cylinder stage of the making process after which the remaining throwing shaping if done entirely from the inside of the vessel.

Western Raku

I make the distinction between "Raku" and "Western Raku" in recognition of the history of the two distinct processes. The original Raku process was invented in the 16th century in Japan and was named after the family who created the process. Western Raku was invented in the 20th century and is an adaption of the original and shares only some of the basic processes while adding others such as bisque firing, glazing and post firing reduction.

The image above is a collection of small "bud vases" and bowls fired in the western Raku process and using a high copper content glaze. The post-firing reduction process produces the distinctive copper flashing as the copper salts in the glaze are starved of oxygen and reduced back to the metal form.

A clear glazed narrow necked vase showing clearly the crazing effects of the raku process on the glaze. Behind in the photo is one of the water colour painting my father brought home from Japan in the 1950s and has undoubtedly influenced my tastes.

Another collection of raku fired vessels from early in my career, around 2020 made during the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown.

Taking the lidded jar form I'm so fond of to the raku process.

The Everyday

Not all art is accessible and one way in which I address that is by making purely functional pottery pieces. Mugs especially are very popular as are bowls and plates and although are simple they still are able to maintain an artistic and handmade quality that we all can appreciate.

The Back Story

Somewhere in the past, well 1979 to be exact and in North Yorkshire, Northallerton, I went to a couple of evening classes at the local school to try pottery. I enjoyed every minute of it and successfully made several vases and bowls and a sculpture of a native african bust/head.

While it took me until late 2019, early 2020 before I decided to become a professional artist. I still have these things and while I look at them now with a highly critical eye and a little amusement I believe that this did set a seed in my head/heart that has now developed into a feeling of "I've found my thing!"

 

Public Art

In late 2024 I created almost by accident a public artwork that still continues to this day even though I don't know where it is.

The figures in the image were originally created as test tiles, I was bored with the typical plain slabs or triangles typically used by potters. I made these figures in large numbers and distributed them in multiple places across my local area and throughout the city, ofen in restaurants etc.

The ones locally, in my street, were obviously attributed to me and were discussed in. WhatsApp groups between residents. I then published a stop motion video of them which deliberately challenges the preconceived notion of their origin and intent.

Unprecedented Times

In today's somewhat overly political times we are challenged by what we see in the news everyday and continuously bombarded with information (and misinformation) on social media. This has increasingly lead me to express my own feelings in some new work.

The 1%

The 1% a new ceramic piece, the first I intentionally 'named'. The piece is wheel thrown in its entirety of black unglazed stoneware. The hollow ceramic torus is cut through with a wedge of gold on the upper edge. Spots of 'blood' can be seen dripping down onto the centre and base of the piece. The surface of the toroid is extremely rough and chaotic. The torus is approximately 28cm in diameter and 6 cm deep.