I often get asked how I manage not to just take everything home with me. It’s a daily challenge, absolutely. But softened perhaps but the fact that I am lucky enough to have at least one piece by most of the artists that I work with at home. The first thing that I did in getting together my list of artists to approach for the gallery was simply to go around my home listing the artists and makers behind everything I had chosen to surround myself with - to approach them about getting to surround myself with even more. A caddy by Tim Lake was one of the first pots I ever bought, followed by a tea bowl (that’s actually sat here on my desk in the gallery) and then a wall plate... Thinking back about this choice and immediate connection with Tim’s work, I can see all of factors in these pieces that have made me fall in love with ceramics. Tim uses clay in such an honest way that it couldn’t be made of anything else, allowing us to see the colour and texture of the fired earth that then bears marks of the hands that have shaped and altered its form. There are often finger-swiped slip marks with the immediacy of an expressive painting and a layered surface that your eyes can’t help but seek out details and meaning within. So, yes, it is difficult not to take everything home with me and I very often watch longingly as certain pieces are sold and taken away. I think this bottle will be exactly that.
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Image above: 'Tall Bottle', thrown and altered stoneware with field slip and poured Nuka glaze, H. 29 x w. 13 cm, by Tim Lake, part of our exhibition 'On The Edge Of The Light' (29th March - 12th May 2019)
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