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View Image Gallery Ray Macro(Full member)

Tel: +44 (0)1434 382137   Email:  

Artist's Statement

I was captivated with the forest effect of multiples of half made lamps with the odd finished lamp illuminated. With a light source obscured by other half-made lamps in the foreground it generated a powerful idea of sunrise within a woodland ambience. I struggled for several years to re-create this idea in a single ceramic piece starting with wall hung pots thrown by Syl. In the meantime I became interested in water features using minute flows of water from remote sources and to achieve the complexity of practical technicalities I began to extrude pipe and geometric sections in clay, sculpting and using them in a whole manner of ways.

It was some considerable time before I began to recognize the possibilities in using these extrusions to realize my ideas on lighting within tall elegant wall hung ceramic forms. Using reflected and refracted light from a concealed lamp source emitted through openings carefully related to each other but leaving behind a tree design enveloping the form. With designs based upon different growth characteristics I found these produced different lighting ambiences which promoted movement, direction or settlement.

I seek to resolve the natural conflict between producing an output of light and that of producing an object of craftsmanship and beauty in its own right. I am also constantly confronted with a natural tension between ideas of design (from the past) and intuitive response to damp clay which I had come to know and to love in ceramics -(this is becomes particularly apparent if one thinks of producing deliberately handed pairs of lamps). Given these inescapably incurred tensions continued experiments with different extruded forms, a study of the part of design in Art Nouveau and in the Arts and Crafts movement of the nineteenth century and observations of the "energy forms" and characterisics of growth of different trees in their fixed place in the landscape provide a constant source of new directions for the future.

Current Work

Tall elegant pierced wall and floor lamps inspired by individual character of the growth patterns of mature trees. Ray has developed a technique of hollow extrusion to achieve these extended forms, creating a localised ambience of light.

Work generally available from:
Stokoe House Ceramics Gallery, Alston, Cumbria CA9 3HS

Technical Information

Electric Kiln firing to 1235ºc using dolomite glaze over engobe.

History

I qualified as an architect in 1965 and was in practise for more than 20 years. At the same time Syl set up her first pottery workshop and thereafter I was involved with the premises to setting up successive pottery workshops and studios (7 to date).

I have carried heavy loads, maintained equipment, prepared clay, mixed & tested glazes, put handles and sprigs on pots, packed kilns and helped with weekend markets- only later helping to carrying out the piercing of tree designs on Syls thrown table lamps and later still developing my own ceramic identity.

Profile Image

Ceramics by Ray Macro at Studiopottery.co.uk - home

View Image Gallery Selected Images

Ceramics by Ray Macro at Studiopottery.co.uk - Tall Wall Lamp with sgraffito interior decoration. Rectangular section. Height: 24 inches. Produced in 2003. Ceramics by Ray Macro at Studiopottery.co.uk - Pair of Wall Lights, 2007.
Ceramics by Ray Macro at Studiopottery.co.uk - Group of three Wall lights - Triangular section. Two sided and single sided. Produced in 2003. Ceramics by Ray Macro at Studiopottery.co.uk - Large Floor Lamp - rectangular section. Height: 24 inches. Produced in 2003.
Ceramics by Ray Macro at Studiopottery.co.uk - Pair of Wall lights - Rectangular section. height 14 inches. Produced in 2003. Ceramics by Ray Macro at Studiopottery.co.uk - Pair of Wall lights - Rectangular section. Height: 22 inches. Produced in 2003.

Contact Details

Studio Address: Stokoe House Ceramics Gallery, Market Place, Alston, Cumbria, UK, CA9 3HS.
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Telephone: +44 (0)1434 382137
Email:

Availability: Open daily 10am - 5pm Easter to October. November - December Weekends only.
Winter months, Gallery closed, but studio may be open. Phone first.



Last Updated: 2008-04-06

Work styles:

Lighting
Handbuilt
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