THE POTTER

Photo: Suzy Bennett

ALISON WEST

Potter
Chagford

Looking back, the writing was on the wall for Alison West even when she was a child. “I was the family pyromaniac, who always wanted to light the bonfires and candles,” she says, as she fills her kiln with a freshly-turned set of pots. “There was a seam of clay in our garden in which I was always elbow-deep making thumb pots which I’d put in the Aga to dry.” 

 Fifty years on, Alison still loves to light fires and get her hands dirty – now as a potter who harvests her materials from the Dartmoor countryside. “I struggle to walk past a riverbank or ditch without checking it for clay,” she says. “I roll mud into a thin sausage, and if it wraps around my finger without cracking, I can make a pot from it, or use it as a ‘slip’ to decorate other pots. Clay is essentially just classy mud.”

 Alison doesn’t just gather wild clay for her work. Rarely a day goes by when walks with her dog, Nina, aren’t punctuated by a pause to slip a piece of nature into her pocket. Ferns, dried grasses, seed heads, mushrooms, and frilly lichen are among her tried-and-tested favourites. Their destination? Alison’s kiln, where she wraps them around her wild-clay pots to create beautiful, fossil-like imprints.

 Alison specialises in saggar firing, a technique in which she encloses her pottery in a metal container – a ‘saggar’ – before firing it in a kiln. Historically, saggars were used to shield ceramics from the flames, smoke, and ash that are generated during the firing process. However, Alison takes it further by adding combustible materials, creating unique and creative surface effects.

 
 

TASTER CLASS
This 2.5 hour private taster class with Alison West will introduce you to handling clay and throwing a pot on the wheel. For one or two people, this is a relaxing and informal experience and your best pot(s) will be finished, name-stamped and glazed to be collected at a later date.

Location: Chagford TQ13 8DP.

 

LOCATION