Meet the Creator: Crooked Clay, Crooked Clay

My pots tend to be made of porcelain and a few with stoneware. Porcelain is a beautiful clay to work with - it’s like throwing with butter. It can be hard to control and is somewhat unforgiving if you’ve made a slight mistake, but the feeling you get when you’ve thrown something good with porcelain is very rewarding. Stoneware clay brings a little texture to pots, it’s got a sandy feel to it and makes you think of the beach. For the collaboration with Origin, we decided a mix of the two would be ideal.

There’s something about touching the raw material of clay which is special. Without wishing to sound too pretentious, it is easy to feel disconnected from where the things we own come from, we don’t tend to think about their beginnings, it’s like we’ve lost connection to things. All my pots are glazed on the inside, but keeping the exterior raw - feeling literally connected to the clay, connected to the earth - is a small gesture towards this need for connection.

When I first sat at a wheel there was a brief moment when the clay spun perfectly centered threw my hands, that sense of movement felt wonderful. As the wheel spins it attempts to throw the clay from the wheel and the potter tries to keep it in place - this process sometimes feels like a battle, and sometimes like a dance, either way, this movement is the central process, and essentially how a pot is made. By staining clays and then combining them during the throwing process I attempt to capture this sense movement in the finished piece. A pot that reveals the process of creation. This also explains why everyone of the Origin X Crooked Clay Crooked Clay cups is subtly different.

I listen to music in the studio, bands like Silver Jews, Sparklehorse and Grandaddy, all inspire me to make pots. Friedrich Kunath’s paintings have a melancholic humour that inspire me to make pots. But mainly it’s people that inspire me. 

My friend Fred is a brewer. He makes exceptional beer, just for friends, just to make people happy, just because he can. 

My friend John makes films, weird films, most of which I don’t really understand, he just keeps making them, over and over again.  

My friend Will hosts a weekly comedy night, without fail, and sometimes without an audience. 

My Volleyball team-mates are all inspiring. Aging, overweight and inept, we recently won the division three cup (there are three divisions). 

What connects these things is a desire to do something, make something, twinned with a relentless optimism, a dumb, irrational, stubborn optimism to just keep going. That’s what you need in order to be a potter.

I’ve an old dependable Bialetti stove top at home, I’ve had it for years, and I love it. Out and about, either a flat white or a filter coffee. If the word blueberry is in the tasting notes I’m very happy.

I’m working on some larger pots at the moment that are designed to look like landscapes, they are fiddly to throw but do look nice.I’m also making some beer vessels for Cuckoo - a legendary beer bar in Exeter. I really should make some pots for Fred, and perhaps even the volleyball team.

Discover the Origin X Crooked Clay Crooked Clay ceramics collection here.