11.4.13

NEW TABLEWARE COLLECTION PREVIEW

Gladstone Pottery Museum

BONE CHINA FROM STOKE ON TRENT
Really excited to be visiting Stoke on Trent this week, to see the first of my new tableware pieces being sampled.  

My first job after graduating was as a junior shape designer at Wedgwood in Barlaston, what a fantastic place to start a career in ceramics!  Full of history, expertise and quality materials and craftsmanship.  Such a treasure trove of historical references in the musuem and also in the archives underneath the factory, so valued that they've built the Wedgwood Museum to house it all..

I lived just up the road from here - Longton.  One of our ceramic tutors worked just over the way at the Gladstone Pottery Museum, he's still working as a master thrower last time I met up with him.  He was the guy that they always had on the Generation Game as the pottery instructor!  One of the best production throwers around... makes throwing look so so easy!

Derelict Bottle kiln in Longton


Moulds on the casting bench ready for slipcasting. 
It's such a lovely smooth, luxurious material, and so robust and durable when fired, allowing for a thin cast thickness which helps with the translucent qualities.  

filling up the moulds with bone china slip



Bisq kiln being packed.


Fantastic to see my new moulds on the benches, it's been a long time since I worked directly with UK factories, the last production I had was with Park Rose and Hornsea factories up in Yorkshire, making earthenware tableware ranges for me with matt silk glazes, which retailed at Heals, The Conran Shop and Liberty's.  




Preview of new bone china work.  Still a few details to finalise for the new range and  some development to do for another range to sit with this before I launch the collection fully.