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Artist Profile - Tom Knowles Jackson
Tom Knowles Jackson
"A beautiful pot is a celebration of our creativity. Pottery, an ancient craft, reflects mankind's capacity to create; one example of our truly incredible ability to make enduring objects and to strive for and wonder at things of beauty. My love of pottery stems from a deep fascination in the transformation of mud to ceramics and the processes, as numerous as their practitioners, that render such humble materials objects of grace and intrigue.
Potting has been a passion of mine since childhood. I recall my teacher and friend, Steve Sheridan, saying to me; "be careful to clean the clay from under your nails, or it'll get stuck there for ever...". It took me a few years to fully appreciate his meaning but I do now.
I make a range of functional cook and serve ware for the table and home. My work is high fired stoneware, using a small range of my own glazes derived from iron, copper and wood ash. I enjoy making simple enduring forms that have function and purpose and that can bring joy to daily routines of eating, drinking and sharing.
I am a thrower, making all of my pots on a McMeekin momentum wheel. I make functional stoneware for the table, oven and sideboard with an emphasis on the ceremony of eating and drinking. My work is focused on creating beautiful, useable ceramics; Vessels, containers and forms that have a robust yet refined aesthetic. My work is high fired in gas reduction using a simple palette of wood ash, white and tenmoku glazes often with expressive slip decoration.
I work in South Gloucestershire where I have also established an open access ceramics makerspace; The Clay Loft adjacent to my studio.
I trained under Steve Sheridan as a schoolboy at Bryanston School in Dorset. Careers in the Army and in business in the Middle and Far East have finally surrendered to the inexorable call to ceramics."
