Graham Hudson

摘要

My first experience of pots came at eleven years old when, after school, I would help my father at an archaeological dig near our home. During this time I found a small black Iron Age bowl - just a functional everyday piece, but the excitement at finding it and the links it suggested with people and cultures long since gone lives with me still. At this stage I did not even consider making pots, but six years later, when I was looking for an extra A-Level, my form tutor, a keen and inspiring potter, suggested ceramics. Prom that moment on I have been pretty much hooked. I finished with a top grade and my exam piece being exhibited in the Department of Education at Westminster. Following a foundation course I spent three years (1992-5) on a ceramics degree at Bath College of Higher Education. It was a time of mixed emotions: delight at the number of techniques, processes and opportunities available, awe in listening to and discussing work with potters I had long admired, and despair when, late in the evening, I would be told to make something again because I had not paid enough attention to detail. At Bath I became interested in the process of slip-casting and its endless possibilities, producing my entire final show with the technique. The precision and delicacy of the finished piece, the ability to include fine surface detail and be able to repeat ideas quickly, exploring subtle variations and new ideas with each cast, seemed to lend itself perfectly to my interest in functional pieces.