Susannah Bradley
"I constantly strive for perfection in my making, but am always humbled by the effects of the fire"
A classical music student who fell in love with pottery, then lucky enough to be apprenticed in Windsor making earthenware. In 1967, influenced by Bernard Leach and Lucy Rie, I made stoneware in my first studio in Littlewick Green, also taught adults at Amersham School and Berkshire College of Art and Design.
By 1971, Cookham Pottery housed my own small school, three apprentices, a beautiful shop and “Supots” went worldwide. Five years in Antigua found me making the Islands pots in highly decorated earthenware which I continued with for a while on returning to Cookham.
I am now back to my first love, stoneware, here in Noss Mayo, Devon, making thrown lightweight domestic ware and thrown, handbuilt and modelled stoneware, fired to1280°C. My tiny studio is poised on an estuary, which informs my work. My ‘blue surf’ range is a shiny, ilmenite /cobalt glaze with a tin overcoat breaking like water on a beach.
My ‘paddle drip’ range is taken from the circular drip pattern formed when rowing and the semi-matt, aqua ,sand and grey represent water in stormier mood.
I constantly strive for perfection in my making, but am always humbled by the effects of the fire.