Abi’s studio is in a barn attached to the old Mill house where she lives on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon.
Abi’s Raku pots are thrown on the wheel uses a mix of porcelain and Raku clay to create elegant bottles and round moon jars. The work is then decorated with copper wash that develops beautiful colours and flashes on the pot’s surface. The necks and the rims of the bottles and moon jars have a simple ancient Terra Sigillata slip applied to them and then polished to give a subtitle shine in contrast to the slight texture on the body of the pot. Terra Sigillata was used by the Greeks and Romans to decorate their ceramics. Abi likes the connection of ancient techniques still being used 2000 years later. Abi also decorates the pots using ‘Naked Raku’ technique, when the resist slip and glaze cracks off the pot leaving a subtle black smoke mark on its burnished surface.
Abi mixes her own glazes and washes, and has built her own Raku kiln that the pots are fired in. She finds the unpredictability of Raku creates a finished result that’s very exciting, for her as the maker and more importantly, the onlooker.
Abi started pottery about twenty years ago following a career as a dancer, then teacher of dance and exercise. She began with a weekly pottery course, progressing to a one day a week apprentice position in a professional pottery alongside craft and design courses. In the main, she has taught herself through experiment and practice.
