And pottery’s formerly fuddy-duddy reputation has also been shaken up by a perception in recent years of the craft as experimental, exemplified by the work of Grayson Perry and Edmund de Waal. “When I was studying ceramics at the Royal College of Art from 2009 to 2011, no-one called themselves a craftsman or potter,” remembers potter Stuart Carey, who co-founded The Kiln Rooms studios in south London in 2015. “Now you have events like London Craft Week and craft-related TV shows with a strong educational appeal.” According to Brundin, “Lockdowns have spurred on the revival of crafts, with people able to appreciate images and videos of them on social media.”
Throwing shapes
The success of TV show The Great Pottery Throw Down – which sees amateur potters compete to make the best ceramics – has also stoked an appreciation of pottery. “The reason for such an avid interest in pottery is because the material lends itself to a personal experience that the potter takes on throughout the series,” says Keith Brymer Jones, a judge for the UK series and an established potter. “It’s a perfect medium to convey one’s imagination and encompasses sensual, textural and cognitive activities.”
Tony Shepherd, a member of Turning Earth, explains why he got involved in pottery: “I never went to art school. As a boy, I was pushed down the technical route. One day, my wife and I watched The Great Pottery Throw Down and found it unbelievably inspirational. I love taking clay and patiently producing a useful, beautiful object with it.”
“The programme responded to an existing trend,” says Brundin, who is also business manager at The Craft Potters Association (CPA). Established in 1958 as a small friendly society, CPA promotes British studio potters and ceramicists, and now has 1,800 members (compared with 1,000 a year ago). It provides members with practical, topical help, such as how to make and sell pottery during lockdowns. CPA’s founding members included pioneering potters Eileen Lewenstein and Rosemary Wren.
Another influential 20th-Century ceramicist, the Stoke-born Clarice Cliff – famous for her affordable ceramics, including her iconic, colourful, Art Deco Bizarre range of 1927 – was one of the first women to produce a line of crockery under her own name. Her work is highly collectable, and she is the subject of upcoming film biopic The Colour Room, starring Phoebe Dynevor as Cliff.