Picture by Sussie Ahlburg.
A lovely review of Harrow Ceramics Final Show “Material Matters” by Christina Lai has just been published in Ceramics Art and Perception, Issue 94, pp 73-77. The show was in July 2012, so it’s long after the event but very warming after the stormy, wet winter. I don’t see a way to post a link to it and I’m sure that I’m not allowed to publish the whole article here. The review is equally flattering to the history of Harrow Ceramics, the teaching staff and to each of the seven of us final graduates. Forgive me for quoting just the small part of it devoted to my work.
“…. I started with Peter Willis’ tableaux of pots in various shapes and heights of bottle kilns. Smoking, bottle-shaped hovels were an everyday sight during the 18th to mid 20th century heydays of the Staffordshire potteries. Willis’ clean, sleek forms are perfect canvasses for the unexpected. Bubbled, rugged crusty textures emerge against glossy drips of earth-toned glazes. Willis calls his work ‘an expression of concern for fellow men who labour in distressing conditions, for us to have happy and secure lives’. A personal, conflicting conscience may not be the first impression one feels, perhaps hinted only from the oxide stained streaks and contours (blood, sweat and tears?). Nevertheless it is obviously cathartic, poetic, like a subliminal watercolor painting imbued with memories.”
