David Wicks

I have been throwing pots since school days, inspired by visits to local potteries. I took the Foundation Course at Cheltenham Art College and Three Dimensional Design at Manchester School of Art. I was part of a group working with Val Cushing from Alfred College in New York State, building and firing a catenary arch salt-glaze kiln. Whilst a student I visited and volunteered for several potters, gaining an enthusiasm for running a studio. I spent a year in Cairo working with local potters and teaching. After returning to Britain I worked for a couple of years as a pottery assistant for Chris White, at Hookshouse Pottery, Tetbury. I learnt a lot about the practicalities of running a workshop. 

For five years I ran my own workshop at Newark Park, Ozleworth, near Wotton Under Edge, Gloucestershire. I made once-fired slipware, firing a two-chamber wood-fired kiln. I gave up the pottery to teach Art in the Black Country, West Midlands for thirty years but meanwhile, for forty years, I taught throwing at the Midlands Arts Centre in Cannon Hill, Edgbaston, Birmingham. I worked in Reduced stoneware, recently developing ash glazes and Chinese glazes on Porcelain.   

My main inspiration has been country pottery, British, European, Chinese and Japanese and the work of potters inspired by country pottery, Michal Cardew, Bernard and David Leach, Richard Batterham and others. I like making pots to use in everyday life and I love to have Raku firings when I can. I have moved to a little wooden workshop in Staunton, on the Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire borders and can see the Sugarloaf near Abergavenny on clear days from the nearby hills.