To quote Britney Spears, oops, I did it again. Having promised not to buy any more pieces (for the time being) I managed to pick up three rather nice bowls from the
Ceramic Art London 2006 event this weekend.
The first purchase was two "feather bowls" by Annie Turner, one in a wonderful bluey-grey and the other in white. Both pieces are handmade bowls embossed on the inside with a feather. Annie takes her inspiration from the Deben River:
Turner's sculpture is imprinted with the Deben's past and present, the cycles of nature and the interaction of man. These are, as she puts it "objects that trigger the memory", as much collective memory as personal recollection. These encrusted forms - families of spoons, sinkers, ladders, sluices and so on - reveal the particular texture and weather of this waterland, the character of its beds and inlets, the colour of its reflected sky. The richly layered "meander bowls", impressed with the fragments and detritus Turner has found on innumerable walks, are small in scale but encapsulate so much about the broader landscape - a tidal geography concentrated and made intimate.
(
words by David Whiting)
The other was a small red-glazed sake bowl (pictured) by
Margaret Curtis (probably one of a pair , so my next mission is to track down its sibling).
I'll definitely keep following both of these potters' work. Annie, in particular, was a joy to meet at the event. It's a shame I didn't manage to speak to Antonia Salmon (see previous posts) as she appeared to be tied up for most of the day, but we did get to speak to
Peter Hayes, whose work we later saw in the Fine Arts and Antiques Fair in Olympia...
