Eddie Curtis

Born in County Durham, Eddie Curtis is still based there, where he shares a workshop with his wife Margaret. He trained at Bath Academy of Art after gaining valuable experience as a repetition thrower (which some would say is the best tuition of all). His firing method is traditional, having over the last 30 years worked with a large oil-fuelled brick kiln he built himself. The elemental aspects of the firing process are integral to Curtis’s philosophy, and the resulting pots, freely conceived and vividly copper red, reflect the passage of their making, the imprints of the flame still evident. Both a thrower and handbuilder, his most familiar forms include bowls and caddies, which bring tradition (one can detect both Chinese and Japanese inspiration) into the 21st century. Curtis’s vivid methods and coloration express a very direct engagement with clay and the landscape from which it derives.

David Whiting