I have been making pots since 1972, for thirty-five years alongside a career in teaching. The present studio in Radnorshire was established with the building of the first kiln in 2005, though it is only with my switch to full-time pottery that the kiln and I have established a working relationship leading to results of reasonable consistency - not that any salt-glaze potter could ever expect total predictability.
My work is fired to stoneware temperature, until recently without preliminary (“bisque”) firing, and glazed by throwing salt into the fireboxes at around 1260 degrees Fahrenheit - a method which was invented (or discovered) in the Rhineland in the middle ages and copied by English potteries, notably at Fulham, in the seventeenth century. A couple of years ago I built a second kiln for conventionally glazed ware, which benefitted from a bisque firing. Consequently I now generally bisque my salt ware too. Early salt-glazed pots and the traditional country pottery of Europe are inspirations to me.
The core of my work is a range of “standard ware”, though it is in the nature of salt-glaze that no two pots are the same, and anyway I give myself a fair bit of freedom to vary a shape. Larger jugs, jars and platters, with combed and trailed decoration constitute most of my “exhibition pieces”.