Slab-built porcelain dishes, various sizes
Cylindrical vases, porcelain, various sizes
Jack Doherty
Jack Doherty's work is renowned nationally and internationally. Recent major exhibitions include: this year, Salt and Soda at Rufford Ceramic Centre, Nottinghamshire and Galerie Michel in Saintes, France; 500 Bowls at Gallerie Traces, Hastière in Belgium, and Totally Teabowls at Oakwood Gallery, Edwinstowe, last year; and in 2003, Dish Wish at Brewery Arts, Cirencester and Made in the Middle, a Craftspace touring exhibition. He has held two solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Ceramics gallery in London, in 2002 and 1998, and has shown work at the RBSA gallery in Birmingham, Saltzbrand in Koblenz, Germany, the Victoria and Albert Museum Museum in London, the International Ceramics Biennial in Vallauris, France and the International Ceramics Exhibition in Faenza, Italy.
His work is found in many private and public collections including Ulster Museum, Liverpool Museum, Crafts Council of Ireland, Princesshof Ceramics Museum in Holland, the Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Italy and the Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent. He has been Chair of the Craft Potters Association since 1995, re-elected in 2002. He works from his studio in south Herefordshire which he shares with his wife, Joan who is also a well-known maker. Together they run a series of summer workshops which attract participants from all over the world to the county.
I love pots which have a useful life. I make functional porcelain which ranges in size from fine, delicate teacups to large and unexpectedly rugged slab plates and dishes. The forms are either thrown or slab built with surfaces that are pierced, stretched, carved and ribbed. I use combinations of coloured porcelain clays which react with the sodium during the firing to give subtle changes of colour and texture. The lighter coloured pieces have a thin wash of copper and water brushed into the surface marking. The darker work incorporates a clay which is stained with copper oxide. This is applied as a veneer to the interior of the pot where it penetrates the form, producing a graduated coloured surface on the outside.
The firing plays an important part in determining how my pots look. The work is fired only once, with no slips or glazes on the exterior. When the temperature is approaching “white heat”, I spray a mixture of bicarbonate of soda and water into the kiln. The resulting vapour is carried through the kiln chamber by the path of the flames. It flows around the work, producing a soft, gentle glazed surface where it touches the pot.
Jack Doherty, 2005