Demos and Talks

Throughout the weekend we will feature a number of informal sessions where some of our exhibitors demonstrate techniques of importance in their work.

All demonstrations take place on the first floor – turn right at the top of the stairs. Lift access is available. No need to book.

Saturday 15 March

11:30 - Qi Fang Colbert

Interactive Live-drawing/carving on narrative pots

In this demonstration, Qi Fang Colbert will share her carving and inlaying techniques when making her illustrated narrative ceramics. This will include a live demonstration of Qi carving straight onto greenware, using the audience as her inspiration and starting point. The techniques being demonstrated are inspired by Japanese Mishima and Chinese Dingware sgraffito.

With a background in Fine Art and illustration, Qi’s ceramics specialise in combining 2D illustrations with 3D slab-built and thrown stoneware vessels. The demonstration will engage the audience in the process of story making on a vessel (pre-made greenware) by providing random words, which Qi will take as an inspiration for carving a narrative onto the vessel in front of the audience. The demonstration will show how Qi often uses a single starting point to create surreal and fantastical narratives through a stream of consciousness.

In the session, Qi will also demonstrate how she inlays and colours her works at the bisque stage, using decorative slips and underglazes prior to the final firing.

13:30 - Tim Copsey

The Peak District Pennine landscape and seasons are the backdrop to everything I do. I make pottery on the border between function and sculpture: in essence vases, bowls, bottles and cups, although these are really only ‘Serving Suggestions’. Work is multiply fired, often starting with the wood kiln and ending with lustres.

Described as beautifully ugly – I hope the work is playful, sometimes surprising, sometimes delightful but ultimately resonant of their materiality and the landscape from which they derive.

Tim Copsey’s ceramics combine the opulent and the organic. The Peak District, which surrounds his home and studio, is a lively landscape filled with motion, flux, texture and luster, providing both inspiration and material. The gold and silver burnishes on many of Copsey’s pieces are a response to rushing waterfalls and the dark reflections of peat pools. The Peak’s rock formations inspire layered, undulating, or coarse forms, whilst sections of grit stone and granite from the Pennines are often folded into the surface itself. In this way, his pieces are both about and of the landscape. Whether hand-building or throwing, his process is an interaction with material, beginning with adaptations in clay; Copsey pushing each piece to the limits of stability, before investigating the interactions of glazes and the effects of firing. There is a conversation with the kiln, a push and pull between control and submission, wood firing creating fluid transformations which are often unexpected. His process is one of constant transformation, resulting in pieces which are mercurial: shifting with the light, modifying in each angle viewed, conversing with their environment.

15:30 - Mark Griffiths

From the basics I build through a progression of techniques to arrive at the making of larger pots, open and closed forms, just a calibration of making faceted pots, store jars, bowls and anything else that may be applied to the technique. On then to making a squared bottle and all that implies. I do a section on centering and cheating with clay – always works!

Sunday 16 March

11:30 - Sharon Griffin

Guest Judge on Episode 7 of Channel Four’s ‘The Great Pottery Throw Down’ Sharon will be giving an introduction to figurative ceramics using the slab building technique.

Sharon has been developing and using this technique for over 30 years and it has now become a trademark for her.

In this informal demonstration, Sharon will share how she manages to capture energy and emotion through the use of gestural mark making.

A fast and energetic demo!

13:15- Mark Dally

Mark Dally will be sharing his unconventional journey from textile design to ceramic decoration. Describing what he loves about handmade ceramics and his influences and interests. Mark will be demonstrating his signature style, expressive slip trailing, and the use of hand cut, paper resist stencils as part of the decorating process.

14.45 - Adele Howitt

Extruded Decoration:

Adele has designed her own extruder dies to achieve coils which she manipulates into flowers and shapes. During this demonstration Adele will take you through the various techniques she employs in her own Stellaria sculptures. You’ll explore the development of twisting and manipulating coils of clay.