Colin Caffell ceramics Colin produces mainly individual pieces of stoneware pottery fired in an electric kiln. These are hand-thrown, thrown and coiled, or composite original works mainly inspired by views of the ocean and coastal moorland of West Cornwall. Colin's greatest challenge with these misty sea and landscape pots - these paintings in the round - is to get glaze colours, which are basically chemical reactions, to behave in a painterly way, more like pigments. These effects, that have taken years of experimentation to develop, are built up with brushed-on coloured slips on the raw pot, followed by various dipped, inlaid and brushed on oxides and glazes before the second and, sometimes, third firings. Over time, they have become more and more painterly. The vessels on display are mainly examples of shapes and themes heI often returns to.
Colin developed his skills as a ceramicist at Camberwell School of Art in London, where he was taught to throw and design pots by many well known urban potters of the time: Ian Godfrey, Colin Pearson, Glenys Barton and Ewen Henderson, to name but a few. His greatest influence, however, has probably been Lucie Rie, to whom he will always be grateful for the time she gave him at her studio.
Colin is a full member and Secretary of the Penwith Society of Artists in Cornwall
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