| Sarah acknowledges
a debt to mediaeval pots, the arts of Mesopotamia and South-East
Asia, to Neolithic Art, to Western Painting, Sculpture, architecture,
music, literature, poetry,wit, philosophy and religion, and
to innunerable people through the years but especially to
Wieslaw Pilawski, Irene Milburn, Ernest Shakleton and Cardinal
Basil Hume.
Landscape is a theme in her work. She has walked, drawn
and painted it since childhood and this lies behind her
evolution of birdbaths which she has made since 1984. her
ceramics are represented in 13 museums in the UK and she
has won 5 awards. Her work can be bought at Contemporary
Applied Arts and Contemporary Ceramics in London, The Scottish
Gallery in Edinburgh.
The studio gallery is open most weekdays, 11am - 5pm.
If you are coming a long way and/or wish to
call on a weekend please telephone first.
PERSONAL STATEMENT
Throughout this last Winter, and right up to now, each evening on getting into bed and again on first waking, I've lit a candle in my bedroom. It stands on a chest of drawers at eye level to me as I sit in bed. The upper third of the room in this old cottage is formed in the roof space and there is not a straight line anywhere at the point where ceiling meets roof. Instead this angle is a subtly meandering line. A cat may have slept at my feet warming me and on one coming in in the morning and jumping up beside me I'll have greeted it with a stroke down its thick silken back.
Now as I return to slab building after a 20 year interval, I look for ways of working with clay when it is at its softest. It only just stands up. But I'll let it stiffen from that first shaping and continue when it is firmer, all the time trying to preserve a softness that I've seen in the candle, the ceiling and the cat. When first evolving a shape I don't mind of one technique blends into several others. As the form evolves, so will the technique with which its made.
And, I've a confession to make. During Holy Communion on Sundays in church, when I should be thinking of the Holy Ghost and praying for myself and others instead I'm often more interested in contemplating the stone slabs that edge the windows, how these apprarently haphazard asymetric cut shapes stack on top of the other to form that edge between the wall and window recess. I'm wondering how I can transform those forms and spaces into flower bricks, all the while preserving what I like most about them, their gravitas and beguiling simplicity.
July 2006
Biography
Born 1945
Grew up and was educated in London
1960-64
Chelsea Art School (Painting)
1966-71
Middlesex Hospital, London (SRN)
1971-73
Harrow Art School (Harrow Diploma in Studio Pottery)
Apprenticeships with David Leach and Zelda Mowat
In 1975
Set up her own studio at Selmeston, Sussex where she works
as a potter,using a saltglaze kiln.
Awards:
1975
Crafts Council Grant to establish a workshop
1978
South East Arts Bursary Award
1990
John Ruskin Craft Bursary
1993
South East Arts Major Award
1998
South East Arts Award
Work in Public Collections
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Crafts Council, London
Contemporary Arts Society, London
South East Arts Collection, Hove Museum, Sussex
Castle Museum, Nottingham
Crafts Centre, Northern Arts, Cleveland
Norwich Museum, Norfolk
City Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent
Newport Museum, Gwent, Wales
Arts Centre, University of South Wales, Aberystwyth
Paisley Museum, Scotland
Glasgow Museum, Scotland
Allen Gallery, Alton, Hampshire
Work may be seen on the following databases and Internet:
www.studiopottery.co.uk/html/pgal-swal.html
The Crafts Council Database 44A Pentonville Rd, London,
N19 HF
Axis www.axisartists.org.uk
Design Factor dk@designfactor.demons.co.uk
My Photographer www.duncanmcneill.com/folio
Associations
Crafts Council Index, London
Contemporary Applied Arts, London (ex Committee Members)
Craftsmen Potters Association of Great Britain
Solus Exhibitions
The Southover Gallery, Lewes, Sussex
February 1976
March 1978
June 1979
November 1981
February 1984
March 1987
Barclaycraft, Worthing, Sussex, August 1976
Folkcrafts, Totnes, South Devon, June 1977
The Craftsman, Ditchling, Sussex, July 1978
Victoria & Albert Museums, London (Craftshop), February
1979
Craftwork, Guildford, Surrey, February 1980
The Rye Gallery, Rye, Sussex, June 1980
The Gardiner Centre, Sussex University (with Weaver, L.
Millar), December 1980
Craftsmen Potter Shop, London (with Potters A. & J.
Young), October 1981
Findlay College, Ohio, USA, November 1982
The Terrace Gallery, Uckfield, Sussex, September 1983
Arts Centre, University of South Wales, Aberystwyth, July
1986
Ashdown Gallery, Uckfield, Sussex, Sept/Oct 1988
‘Show-Case’ at Contemporary Applied Arts, London,
Sept/Oct 1999
Some Group Exhibitions
London
Contemporary Applied Arts, London
January 1978
May 1980
December 1983
June 1986
March 1987
May 1988
July 1995
Sept 1999
Crafts Council ‘British
Studio Pottery’ Touring Exhibition in France
1980
Crafts Council ‘The New Domestic Pottery’
November 1984
Crafts Council ‘The
Harrow Connection’,Touring
Exhibition in Britain, October 1989
Craftsman Potters Shop
February 1978
September 1978
May 1980
February 1986
April 1989
Barbican Arts Centre ‘The
Avant Garden, ’June 1991
Contemporary Ceramics,
'Salt and Soda' , March/April 1996
January/February 1998, Decorative Arts Today Exhibition
at Bonhams
'COLLECT' ceramic show at the V & A 2007
'CERAMIC ART LONDON' (CAL) 2007
'THE JUG SHOW' 2007
Outside London
Hove Museum, Sussex, March 1978, February 1991
Mappin Gallery, Sheffield, May 1979
Rufford Craft Centre, Nottinghamshire, July 1981, ‘82,
‘83, ‘91
Leeds Museum & Art
Gallery, December 1982, July 1987
Holborn Museum, Bath, May 1983
Southampton Art Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery, July 1984
Hastings Museum, Sussex, October 1985
Newport Museum, Wales, November 1986
Nottingham Art Gallery, April 1987
Tithe Barn Gallery, Ashford-in-the-Water, Derbyshire, July
1987, May 1989
Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, February 1989
Rufford Craft Gallery (Garden Exhibition), Nottinghamshire,
July 1991
‘The Avant Garden’ Transferred from London to
the Botanical Gardens, Edinburgh, August 1991
21st Anniversary Exhibition of the Guild of Sussex Craftsmen,
Towner Gallery, Eastbourne, November 1991
The Malt House Gallery, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, October
1992
Selmeston and Alciston Village Hall, Sussex, May 1994
‘The Art of the Garden’ at Grey Walls, Gullane:
an Exhibition organised by the Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh,
July 1994
First Lewes Festival at Anne of Cleves Museum, Sussex, April/May
1995
Oxford Gallery, April/May 1996
Brighton Festival, May 1996
Rufford Craft Centre, Nottinghamshire, July/August 1996
Hare Lane Pottery, Cranboume, Dorset, October 1996
The Harley Gallery, Welbeck, Nottinghamshire, March/June
1997
Pallant House, Chichester, West Sussex, June/July 1997
With Geraldine St. Aubyn Hubbard, Nutbourne, West Sussex,
July 1997
Charity Auction at Rufford Craft Gallery, Notts. February
1998
Summer Show in a Riverside Garden, Lewes, East Sussex, May/June
1998
Allen Gallery, Alton, Hampshire, June/July 1999
Radley College School, near Oxford. Exhibition shared with
the painter Andrew Walton. November 1999
Portsmouth Museum ‘Below The Salt’ organised
by University of Derby. September 2000
' Impressed & Incised Ceramics’ - Aberdeen Art
Gallery. July 2001
‘Real Encounters’ Hastings, East Sussex, October
2001
Maureen Michaelson Garden
- May 2003
Rufford Ceramic Fair -
'Earth & Fire 2003', Rufford Country Park, Nr Ollerton,
Newark, Notts
Gallery Topp , Chipping
Norton - 'Alfresco', April 2003
Potato Town Studios, Summer
Exhibition, Chipping Norton, Oxon. June 2003
Hannah Peschar sculpture Garden '03', '04', '05' & '06'
Art in clay, Hatfield House August '05' & '06'
Ceramic show at the Maltings 2006
50th Anniversary, Exhibition of the Craftsmen
Potters Association May - July 2007
50th Anniversary, Exhibition of the Craftsmen
Potters Association June - July 2007
'Earth and Fire' June 2007, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02
Outside Britain
Bergen, Norway, April 1982, May
1990
Freemantle, W.Australia, February 1984
Boston, USA, November 1984, November 1986
Venice, Italy, September 1985
Koblenz, Germany , April 1986
Heidelberg, Germany, November 1988
Munich, Germany, February 1989
Athens, Greece , October 1995
Westerwald, Germany, March 1999
Los Angeles, USA June 2000
Mashiko, Japan October 2000
Koblenz, Germany, September 2002
Commissions
1987 & 1999 - Communion vessels for the Benedictine
Monastery at Worth Abbey, Sussex
1990 - Large vase for St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, London
Many private commissions through the years
Teaching Experience
Bergen Art School, Norway
Harrow Art School, London
Faruham Art School, Surrey
Eastbourne Art School, Sussex
Northease Manor School, Rodmell, Sussex
Rochester & Chatham Art School, Kent
Kings School, Canterbury, Kent
Slindon College, Sussex
Glebe Middle School, Shoreham, Sussex
Lewes Tertiary College, Sussex
Teaching at her own studio in Sussex since 1991
City and Guilds Teaching Certificate awarded in 1996
Grand Valley State University, Michigan, USA, December 1999
Muskegon Community College, Michigan, USA, December 1999
Talks
“Pottery in Public” addresses to Museum and
Gallery Curators at the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, December
1984
Talks given on her transition from pottery to sculpture
at her studio.May & August
1993
Talk given on her 30 years as a potter. August 2005. Given during 'Art in Clay', Hatfield House, Herts.
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