CPA Members Profiles - S

CPA Members Profiles – S

For a complete list of Association members, please see our Member Listing web page.

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Tarragon Smith - CPA Selected Member

Tarragon Smith - CPA Selected Member

Tarragon Smith is a Canadian ceramicist living and working in the U.K.
He has a BFA from NSCAD University, Halifax, Canada, and an MFA from Central Saint Martins, London.
Broadly speaking, his work is a meditation on the ceramic continuum and the aesthetic understanding of artefacts.

Emily Stubbs - CPA Selected Member

Emily Stubbs - CPA Selected Member

Emily Stubbs is a contemporary British ceramicist based in York, North Yorkshire.
Graduating with a BA(Hons) in Ceramics from University of Wales, Cardiff (UWIC) in 2007, Emily went on to co-found PICA Studios; an artist led studio collective of 23 artists, makers, writers and thinkers set within an 18th century printworks in the centre of historic York. Emily exhibits her contemporary ceramics in exhibitions, events and galleries around the UK.
"Through my work I explore the playful relationship between form and surface decoration. The vessel is my primary interest, created by building and collaging slabs of textured clay together. Drawing inspiration from my 2D paper collages and sketches I translate this process into clay, building up layer upon layer of slips and glazes. Fluid brushstrokes intercept scratchy monoprint scrawls, set against bold blocks of colour, to give surfaces rich in texture and depth.The finished vessels have a graphic quality to them, with bold colour, strong line and intuitive mark making."
Vessels are slab built from white earthenware clay. Earthenware coloured slips and underglazes are applied and built up using techniques such as monoprinting, slip trailing and sgraffito. The slabs are then cut and assembled to create the vessel shapes. Exaggerated overhangs create intriguing angles and bring shape to the forms. Particular attention is paid to the joins of the slabs - choosing which to keep and which to blend. Torn edges contrast against smooth cut edges. Areas of transparent glaze is applied to give a contrast of shiny and matt surfaces across the vessel. Fired to 1160c.

Carol Sinclair - CPA Selected Member

Carol Sinclair - CPA Selected Member

Carol hand builds in porcelain to create one off sculptural vessels, plates and bottles using slab and inlay techniques to add imagery and pattern. A ceramics graduate of Grays School of Art in Aberdeen, Carol has been running her practice for more than 30 years, and now works from her home studio in Forfar, Angus.
Inspired by people and places, and in response to specific themes or topics, Carol creates limited edition collections in black and white porcelain. Her work is carefully crafted while also having layers of meaning to draw attention to issues that she cares about. Living in a rural location, trees have become an important motif in Carol’s work, using them to draw attention to the environment. She has also adopted a “closed loop” approach to her practice where she repurposes and recycles as much material as possible from her ceramic production.
Carol’s inlay technique gives her the freedom to combine different patterns or glazes on the inside and outside of her vessels and she uses the interplay of surfaces to add depth and meaning to each piece.

SaeRi Seo - CPA Selected Member

SaeRi Seo - CPA Selected Member

In my work, I strive to intertwine my narrative with broader social and cultural influences, creating a visual representation of my experiences. Central to my artistic exploration is the profound impact of the "good child syndrome" that has shaped my identity since my youth. This complex, deeply rooted in societal and cultural expectations, has greatly influenced my journey as an artist.
To confront and overcome the traumas associated with this syndrome, I embarked on a transformative artistic process: the destruction and reimagining of traditional Korean ceramics. This act serves as a metaphorical means of breaking free from the constraints of my past, a cathartic release of emotions, and a symbol of liberation.
However, as I engage in this process, a realisation dawns upon me—a turning point. I began to reflect upon myself and find glimpses of hope amidst the destruction. This newfound perspective guides me to create works that transcend mere acts of destruction, embodying resilience and beauty.
Through my art, I seek to communicate the complex emotions, struggles, and aspirations that emerge from my journey. By incorporating traditional Korean ceramics, I connect with my cultural heritage, infusing it with contemporary narratives. This fusion of past and present serves as a powerful vehicle for storytelling, inviting viewers to explore their own experiences and reflect upon the transformative potential within their lives.
In essence, my work is an exploration of personal growth, self-discovery, and the inherent beauty that arises from the process of healing.
In my pottery practice, I primarily work with white porcelain. The central technique I employ the throwing, which allows me to shape the foundational forms of my pieces. Once the base shapes are formed, I meticulously handcraft intricate details, such as delicate flowers, which are then carefully attached to the body of the pottery.
I typically fire my pottery within a temperature range of 1220 to 1250 degrees. However, the majority of my work reaches its completion at 1250 degrees. By using white porcelain as my primary medium, I am able to achieve a sense of timeless elegance and delicacy in my pottery. The throwing enables me to create balanced and harmonious forms, while the handcrafted details add a personal touch and intricate beauty to each piece.

Ingrid Saag - Selected member

Ingrid Saag - Selected member

I embarked on a second career making and painting my ceramics after an art college education and more than 20 years practising as a freelance illustrator in publishing, packaging and advertising.
When someone buys one of my pots, they are also acquiring a painting. The human figure, music, dance and the natural world are the focus of my work. Each piece is hand painted, so is individual in its own right. I use many different ceramic materials with which to paint: slips, underglazes, onglazes, glazes, pencils and chalks.
The work is slip cast in white earthenware clay and often altered after removal from the mould.

Antonia Salmon - CPA Fellow

Antonia Salmon - CPA Fellow

I hand build ceramic sculptures that attempt to capture qualities of energy and connection within nature. For example: The sound of moving water (Surge Forms) ; the movement of the Wind (Wind Rush) the sense of Tides meeting Rock; the effect of the Moon or the intimate nature of a Seed Kernel or Nest. Recent interest is in making forms influenced by poetry of nature.
All the sculptures have a strong sense of geometry and a timeless beauty. This is in part due to the process of making which is considered and slow paced, as the forms are gradually honed. Many works are hand burnished and smoke fired.
I graduated from Harrow in 1984 and have exhibited widely in Britain and Europe, with work in private collections worldwide.

Micki Schloessingk - CPA Fellow

Micki Schloessingk - CPA Fellow

The process of wood firing and salt glazing is very challenging. The weather, the wood, the energy of the firers all contribute to making each pot individual. I enjoy making a wide range of pots which respond imaginatively to daily needs in the kitchen.
I have always fired with wood and introduced salt into the kiln to form the glaze. The process is fully engaging. It is something you can never totally control, but experience teaches you to bring together all the elements to create the best possible chance of a good outcome. The flames in a wood kiln are slow and gentle and seem to impart some of these qualities to the pots.
I live and work on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales. I have a beautiful gallery and visitors are very welcome.

Kate Schuricht - Selected member

Kate Schuricht - Selected member

The passage of time and the ability of objects to connect us with our past are constant sources of inspiration for Kate’s work in clay.
Her collection of boxes, jugs, vessels and bound containers are conceived as small scale installations or ceramic landscapes. Pots are carefully positioned to highlight the relationship between their interiors and exteriors.
The unique effect of raku firing gives the pieces a distinctive crackle and smoky textures with a seemingly timeless quality. In contrast, wood, slate and precious metals add balance and harmony to the ceramics, accentuating the interplay between light and dark surfaces.
Kate studied Ceramics and Visual Art at the University of Brighton. Following her graduation, she was selected for a ceramic residency in Japan where she worked alongside established international artists. Her raku and stoneware ceramics have been exhibited internationally since 1996, with her major show at Blackwell in 2008. Her work has been commissioned for private and public collections, including British Airways, the British Embassy, The Walker Art Gallery and Cowley Manor.
Kate runs one-to-one workshops from her studio in Kent.

Kate Scott - Selected member

Kate Scott - Selected member

My stoneware pieces are inlaid with pattern and text, so that the decoration is part of the surface rather than a superficial addition. The body is sometimes stained first, and I use a matte glaze.

Tiffany Scull - Selected member

Tiffany Scull - Selected member

Since being a small girl I have spent many happy hours drawing and painting images of nature which excited me. Discovering and specializing in the beautiful technique of Sgraffito has allowed me to combine my two loves of drawing and clay work. I am passionate about this time consuming process and have developed a distinctive and unique style, with each piece being made, and meticulously decorated by hand. Telling a story and trying to capture a fleeting moment in time I find very fascinating. My forms are thrown using a white fine stoneware and decorated using coloured slips, drawing, carving and sgraffito. Each piece is fired in an electric kiln with only the main themes of the decoration being glazed creating a tension between the matt and shiny surface.

Claire Seneviratne - Selected member

Claire Seneviratne - Selected member

Many past ideas seem to have intertwined into my work and together portray a new sense of freedom. This freedom has inspired a new energy and the effect is spiralling.
I want to capture a ‘naturalness or rawness’ as if my work has been made by nature. This is why I love to smoke-fire as my work is surrendered to the elements.
My work is burnished and I use white earthenware or porcelain. I am also incorporating glaze and lustres to intensify the richness of textures.
My pieces are smoke-fired in sawdust several times until the desired effect is reached. Different layers of the smoke-fire effect continue to reinforce the layering concept of burnishing, glazing and lustres.
The curves of my vessels have an affinity with the female form and the natural ‘raw’ quality of the colours and textures lends itself to wild landscapes, shimmering lakes and night skies.
I was awarded a setting up grant by the crafts council in 1999 and have continued developing and selling my work ever since.

Jane Seymour - Selected member

Jane Seymour - Selected member

Born in 1954, Jane grew up on farms in the marshlands of Suffolk, and the valleys and mountains of Wales. She had an unconventional upbringing with little formal schooling, but was encouraged by her parents to be creative in crafts; birthday presents included a weaving loom and supplies of drawing books. In her artwork and ceramics she is self-taught, although strongly influenced by her mother Sally Seymour, who was an artist and potter and her father John Seymour who was a travel writer, broadcaster, and author of self-sufficiency books..
For many years as a young mother Jane ran a small craft business in Wales with her wood-turner partner, painting on wood and silk and making clothes to sell in their craft shop.
In 1994 Jane moved to rural Co. Clare, Ireland, where she built a house and studio, and applied herself to ceramics. Not attracted to using glazes, and wishing to use her clay forms as a canvas for her drawings and decorative designs, she inscribes directly into the surface of the unfired clay, applying layers of oxides and stains which are re-applied to her multi-fired work, and often sanded down between firings. This gives a depth and texture to her hand-built ceramics.
She makes strong sculptural slab-built ceramics with a controlled and defined surface decoration inspired by the figurative: crows, ravens, and the human form, working from her studies and life drawings. Her main artistic influencers are Modigliani, Gauguin, and Picasso among many other great artists.
Jane is a member of Portfolio Ireland; Ceramics Ireland; and is a selected member of the Crafts Potters Association London UK. Her work is in private collections, in Ireland, UK, and US, as well as by the OPW in Ireland. She has exhibited widely in Ireland as well as the UK.

Ken and Valerie Shelton - Selected members

Ken and Valerie Shelton - Selected members

Ken and Valerie Shelton make individual bowls, vase and plates at their home in south Cheshire; Ken throws the pots on the wheel in fine white earthenware. When the pots have dried to a “leather hard” stage they are turned, and burnished to produce a completely smooth surface. The pots are then biscuit fired in the kiln to 1140°C.
Valerie paints freehand onto the bisque with underglaze colours. Each piece is unique, a combination of practiced brushstroke and instinctive understanding of colour. After painting the pots are glazed with a transparent glaze and fired again.
Valerie studied fashion and textiles at Brighton and Bristol art colleges; a background that is reflected in her use of bright colour. Ken learnt to pot with potters in Bristol and London and has had a long association with the country’s most prominent potters through his work as a consultant to the craft ceramic supplies industry. His early gallery experience selling work by many of the best potters including Rie, Coper and Leach has informed his approach to shape.
Shelton Pottery’s work is sold in galleries and up-market shops throughout the UK and has been shown in various locations including the Collins Gallery Glasgow, Courtauld Gallery, Newcastle-under-Lyme Art Gallery, Folkestone Arts Centre, Morley Gallery, The British Museum, the Laing Art Gallery and Contemporary Ceramics London.

Jane Sheppard - Selected Member

Jane Sheppard - Selected Member

Jane is a self-taught ceramicist and began coiling and smokefiring over 30 years ago. She worked for many years as a lecturer in art specialising in ceramics and finds inspiration in neolithic landscapes and artefact. Living on the Somerset/ Wiltshire border provides rich source material.
The meditative simplicity of coiling is a fundamental part of her practice. Jane is fascinated by the universality of clay and how it lies at the heart of the human experience. She travelled widely in Africa researching the spiritual use of clay and visiting remote pottery communities, running workshops in the Namib and Kalahari deserts with funding from the British Council.
After a 10 year absence from clay whilst a single parent, Jane is enjoying working from her home studio and engaging more deeply in the metaphorical language of clay. She aims for forms and decoration which appeal to our shared human aesthetic and remind us of our physical connection with the earth.

Patricia Shone - Selected member

Patricia Shone - Selected member

“My work has developed in response to the powerful landscape around me on the Isle of Skye and to a feeling of connection with the passage across the land of its past inhabitants. I make mostly bowls, jars and boxes, because they are innately human vessels of containment and sharing.” The highly textured work is hand formed, textured by beating, stretching or carving. Colours are achieved mostly by the firing processes. Some of the work is raku fired with post firing reduction. Other work is wood fired at stoneware for up to 24 hours with light reduction, or saggar-fired in the wood kiln with charcoal. Visitors are welcome at the studio but it is best to contact me in advance to check that I will be in.

Irena Sibrijns - Selected member

Irena Sibrijns - Selected member

White earthenware clay decorated with coloured slips and a variety of techniques such as sgraffito, slip trailing and wax resist. The work is fired twice, using an electric kiln, up to 1125 degrees celsius.
Irena’s work has developed into a mixture of utilitarian ware and decorative pieces. Most work starts out on the wheel, with some more decorative pieces being hand-built. Designs grow around specific themes, but each piece is unique and individually decorated. The style of the work springs from the English 20th century decorative arts tradition, and she collaborates with the Charleston Trust, producing ceramics for their gallery at Charleston House in Firle near Lewes.
Many of the themes used in her work are derived from living on the Suffolk coast, treated with varying levels of abstraction.

Anna Silverton - Selected member

Anna Silverton - Selected member

My vases and bowls are wheel-thrown exclusively in porcelain. I appreciate the repetitive nature of wheel throwing but concentrate on one-off pieces only. I search for shapes I find beautiful, making incremental modifications and additions, teasing out new discoveries. My pots have changed very gradually over time; similar themes recur alongside innovations as I search for the perfect shape and surface.
I also teach adults part-time, which I enjoy; I find it brings balance to the time working in my studio on my own. My studio is at my home in Sydenham South London.

Penny Simpson - Selected member

Penny Simpson - Selected member

I make slip-decorated earthenware, fired to 1140 degrees centigrade. I use a red clay body with white or coloured slips and glazes.
My workshop is situated in the village of Moretonhampstead in Devon, on the edge of Dartmoor. I like making pots for food and for plants.
The surrounding natural world is the inspiration for many of my decorative motifs.

Daniel Smith - Selected member

Daniel Smith - Selected member

Thrown, high-fired porcelain tableware.
Workshop in Mile End, East London.

Mark Smith - Selected member

Mark Smith - Selected member

My work is based on a nostalgic representation of some of my earliest memories of the sea. From the wildlife, through to the weather-worn decay of the architecture, and the shipping industry. Old signage and weather-worn decay are key to bringing my sculptures to life.
I try to put emphasis on the story-telling aspect of my work, crossing between reality and fantasy. I'm also quite a natural hoarder of things and my recycle/upcycle element extends from that. I find old relics and unusual design being part to blame. I try to re-invent objects and give them a new lease of life, rather than go to land fill. I think the importance of doing that is getting more and more relevant in today's environmental uncertainty. My clay element also mimics the aging process, from my ice cream colours to the rust and decay that partners weather-worn timber, metals, plastics, beach finds and ceramics.
I do aim to please, folks, and not be too serious with my outcomes. Some say they make them smile. Well so be it! A smile a day keeps the doctor at bay, so they say.

Peter Smith - CPA Fellow

Peter Smith - CPA Fellow

I have a longtime interest in the English slipware tradition and have sought to develop new work by building on that tradition. I mostly work with tactile clay bodies, left largely unglazed, emphasizing form. At present I have a particular interest in assembled pieces either permanently fixed or with elements that can be moved and placed in different positions. This can also include steel,wood or other materials. A work of mine is not necessarily finished after firing and can be altered at any stage by cutting, re-assembling - any relevant process !

Jenny Southam - Selected member

Jenny Southam - Selected member

Jenny studied Fine Art in Bristol. After working initially in bronze she started her career in ceramics after moving to Exeter, where she lives and has her studio. She works predominantly in terracotta, specialising in individual hand-built and slip decorated figurative sculptures. These works often reference her fascination with Etruscan tomb sculptures and Staffordshire mantelpiece figurines. They portray figures and animals, enraptured by nature and their surroundings. The mythic and domestic rituals explored in many pieces originate in European folk memory, perhaps influenced by her Scandinavian ancestry.
Scale and decoration are both important facets of her practice. Her pieces vary in size from a single figure a few inches in height, to larger and more complicated tableaux. The emotional resonance of each sculpture is enhanced by the rich use of painted slip and sgraffito.
Once built and decorated each sculpture is biscuit fired, glazed, and then fired to a temperature of 1060 degrees Centigrade. Jenny might carry out further firings on the work with lustres or coloured glazes.

Chris Speyer - CPA Fellow

Chris Speyer - CPA Fellow

Throughout the 80s and 90s I made colourful tableware. I was the ceramic half of Yerja Ceramics and Textiles, the textile painter, Katherine Ukleja, being my partner. It was a time of prolific production, selling our work in the UK and abroad. However, before making ceramics, I worked in the theatre, and in 2000 with composer Ieuan Einion I set up a new theatre company in Newcastle upon Tyne. Ceramics took a back seat until 2015 when I began an MA in ceramics design. Previously, the emphasis in my work had been on surface decoration, now I sought to find expression through form. Since graduating I have made sculptural pieces ranging in scale from a few centimetres to over two metres, I have created installations and undertaken public art commissions. I frequently return to making vessels, drawn by the interplay between outer and inner and the lip where they meet.

Barry Stedman - Selected member

Barry Stedman - Selected member

Inspired by mark making and painting, I take a relaxed and direct approach to making vessels. I aim to create a sense of drama that is fresh and exciting, exploring vibrant colour compositions and exploiting the gestural qualities of fluid brush marks and soft clay.
Most of my work is made with earthenware clay, and is usually wheel thrown and altered or constructed from soft slabs and then painted with coloured slips, stains, oxides and glaze and fired to 1080 degrees centigrade.
My workshop is at home in Bedfordshire

Jeremy Steward - CPA Fellow

Jeremy Steward - CPA Fellow

Jeremy Steward trained in Cornwall and then in Cardiff before being invited to join Wobage Farm Craft Workshops in rural Herefordshire in 1995. He and his wife Petra Reynolds, also a potter, live on the edge of the Royal Forest of Dean.
They were invited to join the Wobage studios as part-time apprentices to Mick and Sheila Casson, a role they maintained until Mick’s death in 2003.
Jeremy makes wheel thrown and slab-built pots, in wood-fired salt-glazed stoneware and porcelain, high fired to 1300°C. Along with colleague Patia Davis, Jeremy leads a programme of courses from the Wobage studios.
“Alongside a driving motivation to make functional pots, I am inspired by the soft fluidity of the materials themselves; clay on the wheel, salt-slips and raw-glazes.
My work is decorated in various ways; I often draw, a sort of wet scragfitto, while the pot is still on the wheel, or after the pot has been slipped. Otherwise they might be impressed, embellished with stamps, roulettes or finger wipes, a vocabulary of abstract marks which are forever changing, but which consistently provide movement and fluidity in their accentuation or distortion of form.
My involvement with wood firing and salt & soda vapour glazing, forms an intimate and dynamic aspect to my making. Subjected to the vagaries of kiln atmosphere and flame movement, the pots celebrate a meeting between the conscious and unconscious. Control and intention exercised in the studio, is tempered by the inevitability of a certain unpredictability in the kiln fire.”

Moyra Stewart - Selected member

Moyra Stewart - Selected member

Moyra Stewart hand builds large sculptural vessels at her studio outside Auchtermuchty in Scotland. They are fired in a small outdoor kiln in the Naked Raku method.
"My work is the physical manifestation of my deeply felt connection with the earth. It is not just that I am inspired by landscape, my own well-being is rooted in my love for the bones and the wilds of our planet and my own place in that world is consistently renewed by my relation to it. It is another form of meditation: reminding myself that I am a small speck in the firmament, that the material world is fleeting and fluid, reminds me not to get too caught up in it. Heraclitus said "there is nothing permanent except change" and it is true even of the oldest things around us.... Lewisian Gneiss which lies on the north west of Scotland is the oldest rock in the world, 3 million years old in fact, once it was in the centre of the earth and now it is on the surface and still changing. The beautiful patterns of this rock are the inspiration for the surface designs on my vessels I use these elements of the natural world as a metaphor for the growth and change in our lives, and in my work I explore how as human beings we can embrace those forces".
Craft & Design Maker of the Year 2015, Gold Award in Ceramics

Joanna Still - Selected member

Joanna Still - Selected member

Using the wheel as a starting point the work is textured and refined by hand before firing at a low temperature in a smoke-filled kiln.

Geoffrey Swindell - CPA Fellow

Geoffrey Swindell - CPA Fellow

Some people say my ceramics are like washed up sea creatures, some still alive, some just remnants turning slowly to dust. Others see unidentified objects from a far away galaxy, not sure whether they are organic or constructed, friendly or malevolent. They want to touch them and take them home in their pockets like a newly found treasure.
For over forty years I have been compelled to make these curious forms, usually they are vases but sometimes they become teapots, bowls or jugs and sometimes they don't have a name. Their creation has given me joy, despair, friends, money and backache. Over forty museums and public collections own them including the Crafts Council and the Victoria and Albert in London.
Pieces are wheelmade in Porcelain and fired to Cone 8 oxidising electric kiln