A Stoneware Potter in Earthenware Italy

摘要

Having been mesmerised by a simple lump of clay spinning on a wheel during a family holiday at the age of ten, to the surprise and sometimes despair of family and friends, I have never had the slightest doubt about my vocation. Not keen on school, I threw my passion into pottery, a gamble I hoped would pay off. It did. In the late seventies, thanks to Derek Emms at Staffordshire Polytechnic, I found a position as a studio apprentice at the Cooper Pottery, a family-run business making reduction stoneware. It's now long gone and sadly the apprenticeship process with it. The training was hard, but I have carried with me the skills I learned in those first four years, and they have served me every single day of my working life.