21. Juliet Widdows

Pottery | Ceramics

Juliet is a Ceramic artist and educator exploring themes of landscape and environment within the surfaces of pots. She explores various firing techniques to enfold the pot's surface with smoky layers, introducing combustibles into the firing process.

This gives a unique, less controlled surface pattern, invoking a sense of misty mornings or turbulent planet storms. Added to this she also explores ways of layering glazes and underglazes to enhance forms and create an ambience of soft evening light and misty landscapes, enveloping surfaces with soft colours, allowing the landscape to wander around the pot.

Upon arriving at Juliet's Studio, the visitor will be able to see and feel the process of clay creation. The studio is well equipped with wheels, a slab roller, and a myriad of tools to encourage creative production of pots, both wheel-thrown and hand-built. The process of making pieces in clay is a long one and there will be examples of freshly made pots, leather-hard, bisqued and glazed wares. Juliet will be able to explain in depth the processes and time involved in creating each piece, the firing processes, and many technical aspects. Juliet has been an educator at all levels throughout her career, teaching not only ceramics, but painting, drawing, jewellery making, visual communication, mosaics and textiles.

“I have always created art and am particularly drawn to ceramics. I love the feeling of moving clay through my hands, of being in harmony with it and shaping it into an object the viewer wants to touch and hold. I love the colours of our environment, watching nature unfurl and somehow trying to convey that in my work. Working with clay is essential to my well-being, and sharing that is why I open my studio to visitors."

— Juliet Widdows