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View Image Gallery Joan Hardie(Full member)

Tel: +44(0)7803 174120   Email:   Web: www.bitterbeck.co.uk  

Artist's Statement

My aims are to produce ceramics that encourage people to look afresh at the natural world and which are lively, interesting, accessible and affordable. My work is inspired by natural textures, colours and forms, particularly from trees, ferns, lichens and fungi. I enjoy trying to capture something of the feeling of a natural subject in clay, so that the ceramic piece becomes a celebration of nature.

Current Work

Work Generally Available from:
Galleries The Art Room Gallery, Garstang, Lancashire
Down to Earth, Whitchurch, Shropshire
Di Rollo Gallery, Edinburgh
Atholl Gallery, Dunkfield, Perthshire
My work is available from my studio at Bitter Beck Pottery.

Technical Information

My work is all hand built using a range of techniques, clays, slips and glazes to achieve the desired result. I use thin impressed slabs to make individual vases, bowls, hanging pieces, wall collages and small sculptural pieces. My work is fired in an electric kiln at 1240-60C. The wall collages are made as individual pieces and then cemented together onto plywood backings. 

Background History

I started making ceramics about 35 years ago, firstly at evening classes, then in a shed in the back garden. I find working with clay absorbing and therapeutic and for me it is the ideal stimulus to creativity. Nevertheless ceramics took a back seat to other work until in about 10 years ago when I saw a piece by Claudi Cassanovas in Barcelona and decided to be a full time potter. I eased myself into it through a few years of workshops at an FE college then took a year off work to do a professional development diploma for designer-makers. A year later I opened Bitter Beck Pottery in Cockermouth, Cumbria, and gave up my work as a management consultant.

Before becoming a potter I followed careers in education, marketing and business planning, and then as a freelance management consultant. 

Exhibition History

2007    Farfield Mill, Sedburgh, Cumbria - Cumbrian Potters
Rosehill Theatre, Whitehaven, Cumbria
Keswick Museum, Cumbria - Cumbrian Potters    
“Ceramic Inspirations”, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, Cumbria
2008    Fifiefofum Art Gallery, Newton, Northumberland – Northern Potters
NPA30, PR1 Gallery, UCLAN, Preston, Lancashire – Northern Potters
Objects of Desire, Chapel Gallery, Ormskirk, Lancashire - selected

Profile Image

Ceramics by Joan Hardie at Studiopottery.co.uk - home

View Image Gallery Selected Images

Ceramics by Joan Hardie at Studiopottery.co.uk - Green park, 2008. Textured stoneware decorated with oxides, slips and glazes. The piece celebrates the carpet of fallen leaves in London’s Green Park. The individual leaves were made by impressing London Plane leaves into clay and then fired separatel Ceramics by Joan Hardie at Studiopottery.co.uk - Maple bowl, 2008.
Ceramics by Joan Hardie at Studiopottery.co.uk - Red comfrey vase, 2008. Ceramics by Joan Hardie at Studiopottery.co.uk - Hanging ivy leaves, 2008.
Ceramics by Joan Hardie at Studiopottery.co.uk - Framed sycamore collage, 2008. Ceramics by Joan Hardie at Studiopottery.co.uk - Comfrey pod vase, 2008.

Contact Details

Studio Address: Bitter Beck Pottery, 11 Market Place, Cockermouth, Cumbria, UK, CA13 9NH.
View in Google Maps

Telephone: +44(0)7803 174120
Email:
Web-site: www.bitterbeck.co.uk

Availability: Bitter Beck Pottery is open to the public from Easter until Christmas. Please check my website for opening times. The pottery is in Cockermouth’s historic market place, in northwest Cumbria.

Joined on: 2008-08-05
Last Updated: 2011-06-14

Events featuring this potter

Potfest in the Pens - Penrith : Potfest in the Pens
August 03, 2012 to August 05, 2012

Work styles:

Wall Panels, Plaques
Unglazed
Stoneware
Kitchen & Tableware
Handbuilt
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