Trust your Taste (because you are different to anyone else on the planet)

I think there are a few things that stop many people from having beautiful things in their lives.

Firstly it’s easy to have a sense that we don’t deserve to have beautiful things. It’s also possible for beautiful things to appear superficial and unnecessary and I have noticed that some people think that it is a vanity to choose beautiful objects.

I completely disagree with all of these. I think living in the midst of beauty is as important as the air we breathe. I think beauty can be like heaven. We think it’s something that happens at another time – rather than ‘We are living in heaven now, enjoy’.

My rallying cry has always been ‘To bring beauty into your life, that’s my job’ and I think I got it by direct injection from my parents. As a child the chair I sat in (and covered in porridge), was handmade from driftwood in the long winter nights by a farmer in Kerry. The spoons, plates, glasses, mugs that I used were all carefully chosen by my mother, early on for their strength and durability when they bounced off the tiled floor, and later for the beauty of simplicity.

There is nothing elitist or snobbish to my attitude to good design. I would have been very happy to have had the same career as Mr. Ikea. If you are making a mug it is as easy to make a beautiful mug as an ugly mug and needn’t cost any more. I think when choosing or making something the real trick is not to worry what friends, neighbours and relations think of your choice. Being true to your own heart is a very good standard to work by. What I do may be hideous to you, so that means you’ve got to do your own thing.

As near as I can get to good design is to keep things as simple as possible. So maybe there is no such thing as good or bad design. Maybe there’s just personal taste, and for me this is cool as long as you’re following your own heart – and not what friends, magazines and shopkeepers tell you you need.

All my life my work has been design, and it may encourage you to hear that when I was kitting out my own house I had serious doubts about light fittings, curtains, and cutlery. I really had to dig deep to say ‘I like this, and I want it’. There were even a few instances where I chose things and within a year realised they were completely unsuited to my style of living.

But at least I learned what I didn’t like.

Your house is your house. And it’s fine if it’s the same as a thousand other houses on the outside. It’s inside your nest that really counts.

 

Stephen

 

Recent posts:

WHY EARTHENWARE? (AUGUST 12 2014)

“Yes, but why do you like it?”

 

“It would be easy to say ‘Because my daddy made it’ but that’s only part of the story.”, he said…

 

 

WHY EARTHENWARE?

Today as Stephen was floating through the office, as he sometimes does (not often as he hates computers), I asked him a question which I have sometimes wondered about.

“Why Earthenware? Why did you choose, and continue to make earthenware?”

Without hesitation he replied, “Because I like it.”

“Yes, but why do you like it?”

“It would be easy to say ‘Because my daddy made it’ but that’s only part of the story.”, he said.

“The real reason I like earthenware is because of its softness. It lends itself very well to the sorts of gentle shapes that I like to do. What I enjoy most about being a potter is shape, and subtlety.

“The truth is that earthenware is the tradition of most of the world, from Greece to Mexico, and apart from China, Japan, Korea where stoneware and porcelain were made for many thousands of years, and in Europe a few German beer steins, earthenware was the staple pottery. Before technology, the only way to tell the temperature inside a kiln was to look through a little peep-hole to check the colour of the flames (which I learned to do in Japan – it’s surprising how quickly one can become accurate at this). These early kilns were very crude clay boxes. Often in the East the potter would make a large wickerwork archway and weave a basket, over which he would pat clay. Then when it was dry he would light a fire inside, burning away the basket and hey presto! A simple kiln.

“The Africans on the other hand often piled the pots in a circular dome, threw leaves and sticks on top and just lit the fire. All of this was possible because the temperature at which we fire earthenware is very low and so it lent itself to simple, primitive methods. I don’t know but I suppose the reason that the Chinese were able to get into stoneware and porcelain which goes up to more than 1300C/2300F (as opposed to early earthenware at 900C/1600F) is because they were way ahead of us in getting their heads around things like gunpowder, writing their names and all sorts of other things.

“Back in the 1960s in England most potters turned from earthenware to stoneware because it was meant to be stronger – and in a sense this may be true, however we are lucky to have our own field of local earthenware clay which just happens to be as chip-resistant as earthenware can get. And so, I have been lucky enough to do what I really love doing without getting into trouble.”

That’s what the maker has to say, now over to you… We are equally interested to know why you all like earthenware.