Studio Notes: The Autumn Collection

Autumn arrived early in the studio this year. Long before the leaves turned, the forms on the shelves began to shift — away from the open, light-catching shapes of summer and toward something heavier, more enclosed. The body’s instinct precedes the calendar.

Starting Points

Every collection begins not with sketches but with clay. I wedge a batch of high-iron stoneware — dark, almost chocolatey in its raw state — and begin throwing on the wheel without a plan. These first pieces are not meant to be kept; they are questions. What does this clay want to become in this season?

After a week of throwing and discarding, a language emerges. This autumn: deep-shouldered vessels, narrow necks, surfaces scored with fine diagonal grids that catch the glaze differently depending on the angle of light.

The Grid Returns

Regular readers will recognise the geometric scoring as a recurring motif in my work. This season I’ve been working with a rotary tool to cut the grid after throwing, while the clay is leather-hard. The tension between the thrown curve and the incised line — one form of order imposed on another — is something I find endlessly generative.

Palette

The autumn palette draws on the ochres and umbers of the Moroccan desert at harvest time, layered with a new ash glaze that breaks to pale cream at the rims and shoulders. On some pieces I’ve used a wax-resist resist technique to leave small windows of unglazed clay — islands of rawness in the sea of glaze.

What’s Coming

The collection will be available in the shop from the first week of October. It includes twelve vessel forms in three sizes, a series of flat-based bowls, and for the first time, a set of wall plaques — purely decorative, deeply geometric.

I hope they find homes where they can catch the low autumn light.