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Fruit Bowl		Jar		Porcelain Bowl
	Teapot		Bowl		Eartenware Jugs
Plate		Slipware dishes		Slipware detail

Patia studied pottery on the Harrow Studio Pottery course between the years 1986 -1988 and furthered her studies at Cardiff until 1990, before being invited by Mick and Sheila Casson to be part of the team at Wobage Farm Craft Workshops in the spring of 1991. I work with porcelain because this material accentuates the soft gentle forms I am drawn to make; I look for a ’sense of quiet’.  It is the beautiful smoothness of porcelain that emphasises the maker’s touch, hand against rib, inner tension with lift, and soft rim. Although porcelain requires a certain crispness and care in the making, all the fluidity and softness of those often subtle qualities made by the hand are relinquished to glazed pot upon firing. I find this exciting, and so I use a glaze, which has a watery quality, letting the porcelain breathe through. My work in earthenware is more of a direct response to the clays warmth and rich colour. The two materials I use respond in very different ways and require quite different approaches. The rich warm colours of my simple earthenware pots, I hope compliment my more subtle porcelain pieces.  It is an innate primeval sense pulling me make functional domestic pots; pots that are, I hope ‘honest to utility’. My creative response to living and making are slowly evolving –Ideas are not always a direct response to source material, but are more of a balancing between tacit knowledge and desires. The links seem natural, and are quite private and personal. It is the world of nature that forever beguiles, and I marvel at the unconscious hand of peoples from pre history and primitive cultures. Technical notes: Porcelain I use trailed porcelain slip on the pots while they are still damp, to emphasise form and texture; and adding detail with suggested natural motifs. Iron rich slips are then brushed in areas, which combine in the glaze melt which gives strength of colour to rims, handles and decoration. My porcelain pots are all bisque fired first before glazing and firing in a gas kiln to 1300˚c Earthenware The soft shiny earthenware glaze is one that I worked on when a student at Harrow. It has been slightly modified again so that all the pots can be raw glazed i.e. cutting out the need for a bisque firing. All my pot, both porcelain and earthenware are thrown on a Saviac kick wheel.