When understanding the tactility, fragility and virtuosity of ceramic, one could simply turn to the words of artist and professor Theaster Gates who said, ‘As a potter, you learn how to shape the world’. At a time of instability and social fracture, so prominent in today’s cultural zeitgeist, the inclusivity of ceramics is a reminder of the compassion of human spirit. This has been foregrounded in our minds thanks to a couple of projects that have greeted our desks and drawing boards this year. In the poly-centric city of Stoke-on-Trent, England, we completed a rammed earth and tile playscape installation as part of the British Ceramic Biennial (BCB); a demonstration of collaboration, reuse and urban activation. While across the pond, work has started on a homestead by the shores of Lake Michigan, with ceramics intrinsic to both the architecture and project context. Our inquisitiveness has prompted a cross-continental investigation of ceramic, and the optimism that consistently accompanies the medium.

Monty Stauffer – Lead Industrial Designer at Kohler WasteLAB

Recycling of bi-products and waste is not a new concept; however, it is a rarity for this process to transcend sustainable gesture into a viable equivalent to the original process. And even rarer still for this to occur in the ceramic industry. At WasteLAB in Wisconsin, USA, there has been a concentrated drive over the past decade to reconstitute material-set waste, notoriously difficult to recycle, into beautiful objects. A department of sustainability within the manufacturing company Kohler, WasteLAB was established in 2014 as a passion project of several team members; sourcing disused offcuts akin to resourceful ‘ceramic magpies’. Lead Industrial Designer Monty Stauffer, was one of the founders, who initially utilised their lunch hours to scour through landfills, break down material and play with composition. Scrap iron, dust, sand, slag from the foundry and waste enamel were all broken down and reformed as ‘new’ ceramics.

‘In the early years we were highly resourceful’, says Monty. ‘We would use machinery that was outdated and gathering dust in the basement and come into the Kohler studios on weekends to use the kilns. Initially we were more focussed on composition and colour rather than form, more often than not though these experiments would manifest as tile-like. Fast forward to 2017 and we got an official budget. Our biggest asset at WasteLAB was the story. Industry experts were really excited about what we were doing and I don’t think we would have gotten as far if there wasn’t that broader intellectual investment. This was a self-initiated scheme rather than company initiated. When Kohler saw what we were doing it wasn’t long before we had their full backing, they’ve been excellent. We finally launched our first tile series in 2019 composed from 98.6% recycled Kohler pottery cull, and have since expanded into sinks and planters.’

Sara Fraser – Associate Artist, British Ceramics Biennial

Sarah Fraser is a celebrated ceramicist whose work bestrides altruism and reuse. An Associate Artist at the British Ceramics Biennial (BCB), Sarah’s background is as vibrant and compassionate as her practice. From running an architectural ceramic residency in Indonesia, to co-founding the Manchester Clay Collective, to collaborating with Tuckey Design Studio on the Playscape in Stoke-on-Trent, Sarah’s creative process has consistently been people focused.

‘I think ceramics are a really powerful way of helping us tell our stories and that can be a healing experience or it can be an experience that brings you closer to other people. I feel incredibly lucky to work with the people that I do. You go from seeing someone sort of tentatively touching the clay and saying ‘oh, I can’t do this’, to becoming wholly invested in the process. You can see tangible shifts. One of the first groups that I worked with in a well-being setting, specifically here in Stoke, were particularly isolated. That was in 2019 and two members who come to mind have now been volunteering at the festival ever since, chatting to visitors, telling them where to go, talking passionately about the artworks and confident in their abilities as ceramicists. I remember one of them recently saying, ‘you know, I was supposed to attend the drawing class’. A happy mistake! I feel like sometimes it’s more like therapy for me to see how brave people are!

Jane Perryman – Ceramicist

Smoke firing is a ceramic technique where clay pots are fired at a low temperature, using flammable materials like sawdust, paper, or straw to create unique, carbon marks and colorations on the surface. This labour-intensive process is synonymous with the ceramicist Jane Perryman, who has consistently challenged the potential of this method. Following years of working in monochrome, a forensic investigation into a wildflower field adjacent to her studio in Suffolk, prompted the extraction and application of natural dyes full of vibrancy.

‘You can think of the plant extract as a kind of dye. First, I make the ceramic forms and fire them, which goes back to techniques that I learned from three years research in India; I only utilise a couple of tools and my hands to make them, before firing at roughly 900 °C. The pigments are made by gathering plant material from the meadow, cow parsley or blackberries for instance, boiling them up with water, and straining off the material. I soak the ceramics in the resulting concentrated pigment and dependent on the dye viscosity, size of vessel, and firing time the result will be unique. There’s a wonderful element of chance in all of it, an excitement and not knowing what’s going to happen. I have developed a process traditionally associated with textiles onto fired ceramic.’