<Interview Questions>

Q1. You are known around the world not only as a potter, but also as a kiln builder. What fascinates you most about building kilns?

Initially, I just wanted a way to get my pots fired. But kilns are very expensive pieces of equipment, so I decided to learn how to build my own, as I couldn’t afford to buy a commercial one. I learn a lot over the first few years, and found that I could build very good quality kilns for my self. However, my friends and colleagues all wanted me to build kilns for them, too so I started a kiln building business as a side project to help me to pay the mortgage. I’ve found it hard to make my entire living from just selling pots its too unreliable.

As time went on, I realised the carbon debt that I was building up, so I decided to try and find ways to minimise the damage that I was doing by making my ceramics and selling kilns. So I have spent 50 years developing my low emission/no smoke wood firing designs. One other aspect of wood firing besides the aesthetic qualities that are specifically inherent in the process, Which I love and admire so much about the fired surface, is that wood fuel is a carbon neutral fuel. This is so important these days in our carbon constrained, globally heated society. In a very small way, I’m trying to make the world a better place through my work.

Q2. Tomorrow, your new works will be loaded into the kiln here in Yanggu. What thoughts and emotions do you have before a firing?

I am always a bit anxious. There is so much at stake. So many hours have been spent making this work. I always hope for the best, but I am also ready to accept that there will be some disasters as well. There is two months of work at stake here. Am I mad? or is there some kind of poetry being created here? I’m hoping so! However, Nothing is perfect. Nothing is ever finished, and Nothing lasts!

Q3. You have worked with clay from many places around the world. What makes Yanggu clay special to you?

I was so impressed when I came here for the first time 10 years ago, to find a place with such a strong unbroken tradition and history of porcelain making going back 700 years. However, the main thing that struck me was the amazing quality of the porcelain clay that is found here. It is so responsive and beautiful to work with, but also it can be so beautifully subtle when it is glazed and fired.

Q4. After spending time as an artist-in-residence at the Yanggu White Porcelain Museum, what has inspired you most here?

Besides the clay. It’s the people! The management, the staff and the other residents. It is such a collegiate environment. Everybody working in together but while also working independently on their own projects.

Q5. You have often expressed your admiration for the Korean Moon Jar. What first drew you to it?

I first saw images of moon jars when I was a ceramic student at Art School and was impressed with their beauty, but didn’t really understand them and their inner meaning and symbolism until later. I was brought up in a family strongly influenced by Buddhist/Quaker values. A very thoughtful and spiritual environment. As I matured and found my own way in the world. I developed an interest in living not just an organic and wholesome life style, but an environmentally sustainable one as well. It was at this time that the spiritual side of making art came into focus for me. It was about this time that I re-discovered the Korean moon jar, and finally understood their special place in the world as a symbol of not just beauty, but also spiritual content. So I started to read up on Confucian philosophy and found that I already had so much in common with this way of thinking and being, from my childhood upbringing.

Q6. What do you think the Moon Jar can teach people today, in our modern and fast-paced world?

I believe that all the tenets of Confucian philosophy are just as important today as they ever were. If not more so! We need to slow down, and consider our actions and their implications for the world as a whole and the others in it. We are desperately in need of a more ethical, calm and considered approach to life. Modern politics has failed us in this regard. It has been corrupted by commercial interests.

Considering the simplicity, restraint and elegance of the Korean big white jar helps to create a state of mind where the really important things in life become more evident. Because the most important things in life are not ’THINGS’!

Q7. Your exhibition will open at the Yanggu White Porcelain Museum this October. What do you hope visitors will feel when they see your work?

I would like to think that they might feel the sense of respect and calm that I have tried to embed in the making of these simple, elegant objects. However, I am reconciled to the fact that most people will rush past them without really seeing them, just as I did, before I stopped to consider the essence of living a well examined life. I have tried to live a life of minimal consumption and ethical values. I try and do everything that I can to be independent, self-reliant, organic and sustainable. Whether of not any of this is conveyed in the final work is probably doubtful, unless they read my artists statement.