About

This blog is mainly about ceramics – making, firing and exploring the technology and history of ceramics – but it’s also a place to write about things that interest me more generally including design history (especially that of Bristol), travel and food.  I write and lecture on ceramic history, I am a freelance specialist archaeologist, ceramics lecturer and former Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) Applied Arts at Bristol School of Art. I am also a maker when I get time..

Since 2018, I have been involved in two projects funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Arts Council to explore a large trove of largely eighteenth-century ceramics and glass found in a backfilled cellar to the rear of Wells and Mendip Museum in Wells, Somerset in the 1990s. The first project was to record and interpret the Chinese Export Porcelain within the group and to try and establish the relationship between the pots and the house. The collection of approximately 200 pieces includes 85 that are more more or less complete. These were documented and a booklet published for the museum. The second project was to build on the first, developing an understanding of the full range of objects and curating an exhibition at the museum to show what the pottery, glass and other objects can tell us about life in the house and in Wells was like for a ‘comfortable’ family between 1700-1820.

I am co-founder of the Bickley Ceramics Project, a research project exploring historic ceramic technology. The project spent many years building kilns and testing out ideas about historic practice. More recently it is engaged with particular archaeological investigations and theory. This links to my work as an archaeological ceramics specialist with a particular focus on kilns. I blog about the projects I work on when I can. I hope what I write can act as a resource alongside more formal publications. Writing with David Dawson, our book on the medieval pottery kilns at Newport, Pembrokeshire and on the interpretation and reconstruction of archaeologically excavated kilns was published in September 2021 – click here for more information. We would like the later part of the book to set standards for the excavation and interpretation of pottery productions sites across archaeology. As of September 2023, it is available as a pdf from Researchgate here and Academia.edu here.

I was a trustee of the Stradling Collection of 20th-century design and applied arts in Bristol, UK from 2006-2023. The collection is one man’s view of contemporary design from 1948 onwards across all the areas Ken covered whilst running the Bristol Guild of Applied Arts as a retailer. It is a honour to be able to help make the collection accessible to the public and to students and educators. 2019 being the centenary of the foundation of the Bauhaus, the Collection contributed with a major show about the Bauhaus connection with Bristol. In 2022 founder Ken Stradling celebrated his 100th birthday and we selected 100 objects to represent the range of his life and interests.

As a maker I enjoy hand-building and I make teapots and vessels that evolve from stories I hear, things I see and places I visit. I have been enjoying making big jars and bottles recently but Covid-19 Lockdown has brought back an interest in ‘wild clay’ and basic processes and forced a reduction in scale. Pinch-pots are very rewarding and contemplative. I enjoy the plastic qualities of the clay and working fast.