Adam Field's Workshop

Yesterday I attended a workshop organised by Hannah McAndrew at the Solway Ceramics Centre near Carlisle.  I haven't been to the Solway Ceramics centre before but it was really interesting and the facilities were amazing with three wood fired kilns.

The morning was taken up with Adam Field talking about his work before, during, and after Korea.  His videos of both himself and Korean Potters throwing Onggi on his website are well worth the watch.

In the afternoon he demonstrated the work he does with porcelain, he explained throwing from a technical perspective and how it works.  His explanation of how throwing works is one of the best for explaining how throwing works.  He took us through throwing his cups, and a storage jar, talking about his designs.

Adam Field Carving a Cup

Working with fifths he divided his cup before carving in the pattern, which is based on triangles forming the structure.

Adam Field's Carved Cup

"no surface is left unconsidered" - Adam Field

Adam Field's work that he made with Doug Fitch

It was a really good day but I have lots of ideas so have been recording them in a sketchbook, that I just started specifically with ideas of different project and tools I want to make etc.

Lots to do this week I have more prototyping to do and hopefully earthenware sgraffito to do too.

Leach Pottery and a Sneak Peek

Well I managed to get the kiln loaded in a single day on Tuesday, it got fired on Wednesday and when I got in on Friday it was still too hot to unload, I did mange to get a sneak peek into the kiln though, it looks like a good firing, but I won't know until I manage to unload everything which is on Monday now.


On another note we had a visiting lecturer for the day, all the way from St Ives. the lecturer in question was Jack Doherty who is lead potter at the restored Leach Pottery in St Ives and is the retired Chairman of the Craft Potters Association here in the UK. So we got to handle pieces from their standard range that they are producing, they are very nice pieces to handle, we also got to handle his personal work. The though the whole lot is soda fired, his work tries to avoid the "orange peel" affects that is the signature of soda firing. His work also has subtle blue colours throughout, as it was explained that he plays about with the slips to resist the soda and alter the colours.

He also did some demonstrations for us in porcelain, showing us the Leach pottery porcelain range of work and also how to make his own, which used 3 piles of clay and then coils. All the work was made on the wheel, though the first stage of his work he beat it into centre with a mallet that belonged to the pottery and with his fists. It gave me some ideas on what to do for some bigger pieces.

I also got to speak to him one on one about my work, as my tutor wanted me to ask about doing a pottery start up down there in St Ives, but it is a little far from anyone I know to help out with the little one. He was definitely an amazing potter to talk to.