Place of Origin
Since deciding to test out the Studio Ash Glazes, I have been giving serious consideration to the materials I use, and the relationship I (don’t) have with them. My eyes had been opened to the potential of sourcing materials with conceptual, metaphorical, sentimental and/or historical value.
I am involved in a conservation project close to my home in Kent, and while planting new fruit trees in a local orchard we struck a patch of tan-coloured clay. The grand idea at the time, was to refine the clay and throw a limited run of Honey pots to sell along with honey harvested from the hives in the orchard; I have done a spot of wood-turning in my time and thought of turning some honey dibbers from fruit wood priunings. - The making seemed to have a purpose, and provenance, and could tell a story beyond me, by connecting materials to shared places. - Something had begun to ferment in my mind.
10 days ago I invited Joseph Ludkin, fellow Norfolk born potter to join me in a collaborative project investigating aspects of our home county. The conversation began organically via Instagram Direct Messages, of all places, and there just seemed to be too many coincidences and parallels between our histories and our outlook on making.
I had only recently formulated the ideas; these also seemed to just fall into place. On some subconscious level I suppose I have been missing Norfolk. I always loved the landscape, and the coast, and the skies, and the colours, but never really paid attention to the places or the people, and definitely not the stories which wove all this together properly into a History. - Perhaps it the place of children to ignore their origins, and the place of us middle-aged folk to clammer to re-learn our story before the chain is broken?
The plan is to try to make work which comments on the long and ever present relationship between Water and Land that is so particular to Norfolk. The deep-history which formed the geology this place, the ancient movements of people, their activities which shaped the land, and the contemporary issues which define our debate and decisions: How crafts and industries, and the practitioners of these pass knowledge of place forwards.
If you are reading this and know Norfolk well, maybe you have a story of the coast, or flooding, or of the coastal industries (fishing, wind-farms, drilling, the RNLI etc), or of the thatching industry, or The Broads? - Please get in touch with if you know of someone who we need to meet and talk with. These stories and meetings will help to shape the work we make, and together will form an archive of our shared Norfolk.
