Toby Tufton

I make hand thrown stoneware pots on a wheel, fired using an electric kiln.  I have been making pots for over 40 years.  It is important to be pushed in new directions and I have been lucky to be surrounded by potters and others who do that.  Potters are extraordinarily good at sharing their enthusiasm and ideas.  I remember, many many years ago, at 2 or 3 in the morning with a group of potters of all ages and experiences lifting white hot pots out of the wood-fired raku kiln, plunging them into sawdust - stars, sparks, white spirit, red wine, smoke and flames everywhere.  It felt like I’d come home.

I look out over Dartmoor from the garage where I sit and throw pots.  I like to think that the shapes and colours of my pots are in keeping with the view.  I tend to glaze with muted blues and browns rather than brighter glazes.  At the moment, I decorate my quite rounded pots with distortions, fingerprints and dribbled or poured glazes rather than angular sharp designs.  This all seems very Dartmoor - my Dartmoor doesn’t really do angular primary colours. 

Looking forward, I plan to revisit transferring manipulated photographic silhouettes onto pots - and am endlessly wandering the north moor, camera in hand, accumulating suitable images. Also I miss having access to big kilns - perhaps this year!