T-Potty in 2012

SWP member Ian Rylatt has been selected for the 5th International Texas Teapot Tournament, and the International Cup 2012, at the Clay Studio of Missoula Montana in January and February respectively.
Ian says teapots and drinking vessels are small things that are relatively easy to ship to distant shores and are an enjoyable challenge to design for competitions.
Out of more than three hundred international entries and only nine prize winners, Ian won an honourable mention in the 4th Small Teapot Competition, staged by Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California in 2010. Apart from a Korean potter, Ian was the only prize winner from outside the USA.
His winning teapot is pictured here, along with another example of his unusual teapots.

ACW kiln building grant for Daniel Boyle

Members may remember our Shards article on Daniel’s success in winning the prestigious Goudse Plateel Award in 2010.  The challenge was to produce a contemporary twist on the Goudse style of pottery for which the area was once famous, particularly in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods.  The Goudse Festival has been lucky for Daniel, who has now notched four prizes in the five years he has been visiting Gouda.  A special Sponsor’s Prize was given to him in 2007 for the large dish shown here decorated with tessellating swallows.  Both the Sponsor’s Award and the Goudse Plateel Award were worth €500.
The good news for Daniel is that he has recently received a grant from the Welsh Arts council to rebuild his old kiln. It had enabled him to produce rich and beautiful work for 10 years, but the time has come for him to build a new kiln of a slightly different design which will be multi fuelled (wood and oil).
Daniel’s work is regularly shown at the Scottish Gallery, the Bowie Gallery and numerous others across England and Wales.  His work is also part of a collection at the International Ceramics Centre in Hungary and in a collection of British Designers of Excellence in St Petersburg.

Rosemary Cochrane explains her new direction

 
 “Towards the end of 2010 I embarked on an inspiring collaboration with embroiderer and textile artist Louise Watson.  This new creative exchange of ideas took me far outside familiar boundaries.   After a life-long affair with salt-glazed functional ware, I moved away from stoneware clay and salt firings to explore the malleable and delicate qualities of paperclay and electric kiln earthenware firings.

“Exploring new forms combines a liberation from function with a delight in translating the textures of embroidered textiles into ceramics. My love of landscapes and the natural world continues to motivate my work, with added dimensions from the collaboration.”
Shown here is a piece called Winter Fragments, with alternating squares of Louise’s textiles and Rosemary’s ceramics
The collaborative work of Rosemary Cochrane and Louise Watson
was on display during the summer 2011 at Makers Guild in Wales Craft in the Bay, Cardiff and the Gloucestershire Guild of Craftsmen Summer Exhibition, Painswick.