John Gill Ceramics Workshop for Hawaii Craftsmen 2016 (Video 1)
John Gill rolling out slab and making hump mold for asparagus dish.
bowl
Throwing & decorating English slipware pots: Taena Pottery, Gloucestershire
I had the pleasure of filming two exceptional people and skilled potters demonstrating their craft! The historic Taena Pottery – surrounded by mulberry trees and bee-filled lavender – is having its first flirtation with the internet!
Vici and Sean Casserley are the second generation of potters to run the beautiful Taena Pottery. It was started in 1948 by a group of conscientious objectors and survived their dispersal in the 1960s.
Specialising in traditional English slipware, Vici and Sean make and sell their pots from a studio and shop nestled on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment. You can buy read-made or bespoke pieces.
Contact details:
Whitley Court,
Upton-St-Leonards,
Gloucester,
Gloucestershire,
GL4 8EB
Tel: +44 (0)1452 610908
Slipware is a traditional method of decorating clay pots, practiced globally in a variety of styles. English medieval pottery is often decorated with slip and sgraffito (the two techniques demonstrated here) and can be seen on the Tring Tiles at the British Museum:
I am an Art Historian at Cambridge University, with a deep admiration for practitioners of heritage crafts. I grew up near Sean and Vici and hope this film serves as a celebration of lives devoted to creating useful & beautiful things, or, as Sean puts it, 'making nice pots for nice people.'
Ramen Making
Making ramen, making pots- potter Ayumi Horie describes the process of designing and pressing ramen bowls, raising questions about the nature of industrial and handmade processes. How does creativity run across disciplines and how can a machine contribute warmth to an object. Ayumi also introduces Menbachi Bozu, Noodle Boy Bowl, a mischievous yōkai specific to the pottery studio, who breaks and warps pots in the middle of the night.
Filmed, directed, and edited by Ayumi Horie
Music by Lullatone
Decal Application and Assistant Janine Grant
Special thanks to Chloe Horie, Ai Kanazawa, and the Haystack School of Crafts
Ayumi Horie Dry Throwing
Dry throwing involves no water and I've used it for the last 15 years to make handmade bowls, dishes, plates- all low forms. At Alfred as an undergrad, I developed this dry throwing process in which I trim to center using a pin tool, scoop out the inside using a loop tool and thin out the walls by pushing them out with a rib. I use no water because I like the surface of moist clay, rather than wet. This method allows me to preserve the inherent textures in clay that I love- the stretching, cracking, and sagging. Fingerprints have a different kind of crispness and I can coax out a delicate edge of a line on a massive wall. Using this method, I can also work more spontaneously and intuitively because I dont have to wait for the clay to dry out quite so long. Many thanks to Lullatone and Joe Lutton for music and production!