Anne Jennifer Rotherham MA (RCA)
(Maiden Name: James)
Technical notes
The vessels are hand-built in porcelain, stoneware or grogged stoneware. Biscuit fired to temperature of 950 degrees centigrade in an electric kiln, then glazed and re-fired to temperature of 1240 degrees centigrade. Some are fired again at a lower temperature after another over-glaze has been applied.
Most are made from one type of clay but to some stoneware vessels I have started applying porcelain. The glaze used is satin matt off-white dolomite with iron, manganese and copper oxides giving dark and green tones. The orange/red is an over-glaze colour.
Statement
Porcelain and stoneware are exacting clays. The pliable period for working them is much shorter than other clays and neither take kindly to extra moisture being used to bring them back into this workable state.
They have a "memory" and are "unforgiving" in that they tend to show how they have been worked. Before firing the finished object needs to be dried slowly. This equalizes the tensions in the pot, as parts that are thinner than others dry more quickly and can make cracks in the body.
These tensions can causing cracking, splitting, tearing and peeling can be visually interesting. In my latest pots I seek to harness these so called "faults" that are in fact characteristics of the medium.
I have also been noticing similar natural "faults" around me in peeling paint and the splitting bark of trees and am now exploring these with digital photography and images.
Background
Born in Lincolnshire.