The Headless Cross Potter (David Wright)

David’s involvement with ceramics and studio pottery goes back some 35 years, when an interest in clay was piqued by two inspirational tutors, David Morris, and David Paton at the Grimsby School of Art, during an Art Foundation course. He went on to study ceramics at Wolverhampton Polytechnic gaining a first-class honours degree in 1989 and, subsequently, studied Ceramics and Glass at post graduate level, gaining a Master’s degree from the Royal College of Art in 1992. He had the opportunity to complete a placement at Wedgwood in Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent designing and modelling prototype prestige giftware.

Artist statement:

I have recently retired from 27 years in secondary education as a teacher and faculty head and it is now time to resolve some unfinished business with clay… I am of the view that my ceramics and the way in which I work is strongly influenced by belonging to a generation that made things as children. My approach to ceramic processes is akin to the analogy of a kid in a sweet shop, I want to try as many methods as possible and produce work using earthenware, stoneware, Raku and other alternative firing techniques. I have an ongoing interest in how a fairly limited range of shapes can be combined in a number of different formats to create variations in overall form but recently I have been experimenting with the possibilities of surface decoration by piping or icing thick slip onto my pots.