Keep an eye on Online Ceramics during 2021. We are going to add some brilliant potters over the coming months. Choosing new artists is something we savour; over the course of this year we will be adding at least one potter a month. Having originally approached many of these potters up to 18 months ago, we had hoped to add many of them last year, but as with many things in 2020, the global pandemic disrupted our schedule.
We are really pleased that the first potter to join Online Ceramics this year is wood-firer extraordinaire Stephen Parry. Stephen started his pottery career over 40 years ago at the Dartington Workshop in Devon. He worked for a time in France where he developed his love of wood firing before establishing his current studio near Fakenham, Norfolk in 1981.
Online Ceramics first got to know Stephen at Innovations in Ceramic Art, the fair Online Ceramics organised at Cambridge Guildhalls. Stephen was an exhibitor and he decided to wow the public with one of his monumental tall jars. At about 5 feet tall it was spectacular (and incredible heavy). What Stephen hadn’t appreciated was the Guildhalls were located on the first floor and the lift was temperamental so his giant pot had to be manhandled up three flights of stairs!
Having witnessed his epic struggle it was only going to be a matter of time before we approached Stephen to join Online Ceramics.