Blandine Anderson

Ceramics – Stoneware

Blandine’s work explores her interest in creatures associated with the British countryside – both in a domestic setting and within the wider landscape. Her larger, stoneware pieces have a very bold, sculptural appearance. The small porcelain pieces are more detailed and representational.

She is fascinated by the way that a simple sculptural form can be totally altered by the addition of a creature.
Depending on the size and character of that animal – the effect can range from: giving it a sense of scale – to: completely disguising the original form.

Chiu I Wu

Ceramics

When Chiu was little, it was with pen and paper that she felt expressive.. drawing and drawing without thought.. The feeling never left her, and Chiu graduated to paint, study and then ceramics..

She studied in Taiwan, where she was born and grew up, during the early stages of creating and developing her work she held her first exhibition in Taipei. The exhibition was successful and she received commissions for both private and business clients..

She loves the process of creating and also showing her ceramics and paintings but when people ask about her work it is a difficult process to explain, she has no deep meanings, not ones that she recognises consciously;
She produces from her heart, sensing it feels right. The creative process becomes all consuming and fluid, making her aware that what she is creating feels correct and she just loves expressing it.

Ceramics was an adventure into clay and glaze, and she studied hard to be able to create the feeling she wanted.

Eric Moss

Ceramic

Eric works principally in raku where clay takes a spectacular elemental journey through fire, air and water to become ceramic. Random crackle glazes dress tightly controlled, thrown forms evoking aeronautical/spacecraft engines, seedpods, nuts and flowers. Decoration, where applied, is simple and geometric using tape or pre-cut paper shape “resists” counterpointing the crackle, which is the “signature” of raku.

He also uses the “naked raku” process where the bisqued pots have a layer of raw slip and sacrificial glaze applied, which is removed after the “smoking phase” of cooling the red hot pots to reveal the carbon patterning which has impregnated the pot body.

Ruthanne Tudball

Ceramics – soda glaze.

Ruthanne was born in California, near Majave Desert and moved to England in 1968, it was her surroundings of the desert that formed the initial inspiration for making pots. She then went on to study at Goldsmiths College in London.

Ruthanne uses design techniques in which soda and sodium carbonate are strong features . Sodium vapour glazing emphasises her work making the details considered within the finished glazes,of shiny or matt textures, shadows and highlights. Spouts and lips are a feature of her work and have a strong functional aspect. Each of Ruthanne’s pots are an original piece and as she expresses have an “honesty and integrity”.

Ruthanne was recently awarded first place in the acclaimed Texas Teapot Tournament 2007. The work is now on show in the museum in Houston.

Handmade still life ceramics

Horsechestnut

Still life in the true sense as these exquisite pieces of work are reflective ot the tromp l’oiel and early still life paintings of fruits and organic forms. Their detail is almost prefect in representational.
This stand- alone collection, established in 1984 by MA Ceramics graduates, Lorraine Taylor and Nicky Smart, is now considered the best in it’s field.
The attention to detail is paramount, each piece is individually considered, with several layers of glaze added to create both colour and texture, giving a ‘super-real’ effect and accuracy of finish.

Marcus O’Mahony

Ceramic bowls and pots.

Marcus O’Mahony graduated from the Limerick College of Art and Design in the mid seventies. Marcus spent many years teaching Art and Ceramics, mostly in Dublin. In 1993, he left Dublin to esatblish Glencairn Pottery in Lismore County. Waterford, Ireland. From 1999 to the present Marcus has taught ceramics at the Limerick College of Art and Design and the National College of Art and design. Marcus is a member of Irish Contemporary Ceramics and in 2001, became a founder member of the Irish Wood, Salt, Fire Potters Group. In 2004 he was elected professional member of the Crafts Potters Association UK and he is also a member of the German Potters group Kalkspatz.

Marcus’s work is mainly wheel-thrown functional reduction stoneware which is decorated by drawing, combing, stamping and faceting into the wet clay. The work is fired in one of two kilns, a catenary-arch gas kiln and a three chambered wood-fire kiln.