Philippa de Burlet

Maker of  Thrown, Hand-painted Porcelain Tableware. Most of my work is thrown porcelain which is suitable for everyday use. It is strong and durable, cups, bowls etc are happy to go in a dishwasher. The painting is done with a mix of slips (liquid clay) and underglaze colour, painted or slip-trailed onto the surface of the pots when they are finished but not yet fired. After painting they are biscuit fired (first firing) and then they get a glaze firing at a much higher temperature. The glaze firing changes the structure of the clay and glaze by fusing the two together which gives the finished pieces their strength and practicality.

I was lucky enough to go to a school which valued art and craft. We were allowed to use the art room after school and there was a ceramics and metalwork area attached. I can remember the ceramics seed being planted for me when, one day, while I was doodling at a table which had a view of one of the two wooden kick wheels, I heard a good, purposeful ‘thwack‘. I looked up to see the teacher at the wheel, with his hands cupped around a ball of spinning clay. I watched as a tall, slender vase grew, as if by magic, from that solid lump. The form was so graceful, narrow at the bottom, swelling out into a round belly and then higher still into a long, graceful neck, I was spellbound. It helped that that the teacher was the nicest person and, unsurprisingly, I’m by no means the only potter to have fledged from his quiet and peaceful art room.

It took me a lot more years to become a potter as, after school, I didn’t pick it up again until I’d become a parent. I signed up for an evening class at my local community centre and there found a well equipped studio run by another wonderful teacher, Mohammed Abdullah, a master of glaze chemistry, ceramic form and very insistent that his students learned all the H&S essentials required to safely use ceramic materials and equipment. A couple of years later I was dreaming of full time art school, creche required, and found my place on the studio pottery course at Harrow.