Master Day: Anglian Potters

Ashley’s work is rooted in material practice but recognises the relationship between people, places and objects. A vessel is never formal, it has a relationship to the body as it can be held, carried and charged with meaning through ritual and ceremony. Two of Ashley’s large exhibitions have been in Winchester and Guildford cathedrals where the spaces and existing ritual objects inspired the making of large expressive forms imbued with their own ceremonial meanings, and with a nod to the physical presence and weightiness of religious stone objects. Context is important as it can change meaning in work and the space will influence how you feel. Material and setting are ongoing themes in Ashley’s work.

The potter’s wheel is fundamental to making and Ashley is increasingly interested in ‘the event’ of throwing, ie the collapse and recovery, trying to keep the dynamism of the form and allow the process of making to remain visible. Clay is all about transformation. From the time it is dug out of the ground to the way many varied techniques fashion it into an object. It is coated with minerals, colours and glazes and subjected to heat so that the nature of the material is altered into something more permanent. Shards and fragments exist long after the original item has broken so relics remain in history.

Ashley pushes this element of jeopardy further by combining raw clays and shards of previous breakages together. As potters we understand the rules of shrinkage, but working with the outcomes of instability and risk and pushing work to the edge of destruction are what inspire Ashley. The work is often fired 5 or 6 times so the heat transforms further. The concept of finished is one that moves as results are questioned. We often experience a reticence about dealing with results but a sense of liberation that can come from seeing making as an event. Ashley feels happy with his recent work which has come from this chaos.

Ashley initially throws any old red clay, any old porcelain, and a heavily grogged clay into forms to be stacked. These disparate clays are roughly pushed together and shards of found bisque may be inserted into the wet clay. Sagging and cracking occur at the initial stages which exaggerate and change in the multiple firings. The Japanese aesthetic of asymmetry very much in evidence. Slips and colours are added at different stages as are layers of glaze used to help fuse the form together. Permanence is not a given, things are in transit.

Ashley’s making method influences the way he teaches his students at Farnham. Technical knowledge matters hugely but then this knowledge has to be tested by experimenting. Things get discovered through making and questioning. What happens if………, the accident can be the starting point that enriches, a failed test moves you on with increased insight.

In Ashley’s ‘formative’ years as a young potter he was fortunate to come into contact with some of the great ceramic makers of the era. Colin Pearson was a great friend and mentor who first suggested to him the concept of the ‘stately grounded form’. It was Emmanuel Cooper at the RCA who suggested he use enamels as decoration on early work which was straightforward thrown porcelain forms decorated in bright colours inspired by sketchbook drawings.  Later work shows a greater emphasis on surface quality achieved by the layering of slips and glazes as well as the use of enamels and mark making on urns and jars where lids are not an opening but a nod to an internal space. Surface becomes integral to the form. Decals bring in the idea of collage. They are not used in a contrived manner, but they give a sense of order and pattern which clash amidst the chaos of random colour to unite the decorated surface. Ashley is a potter that paints.

At each stage of the process Ashley is responding to the piece that exists in whatever state it is in – summed up by a quote from David Bowie ‘being slightly out of your depth is the most creative place to be’. Stay true to yourself and make from the heart.