All About My Pottery Apprenticeships

hey and welcome back this comment from alex has come up numerous times so i thought i'd make a whole video dedicated to explaining the apprenticeships and the training that i've been through and the journey from being a beginner to finally having my own pottery studio throughout this video i'll be showing you old footage and lots of photographs too but sadly at the beginning when i first started to make pots at the steiner school i attended there's very little to show as i wasn't actively documenting it like i do now working with clay is something we did from a very young age at the school i attended even in kindergarten we'd dig up clay from the bottom of the gardens and fire it in the bread ovens on site there was also a pottery at the school and it was used in many subjects thereafter when we were learning about the romans we'd build mosaics and other pieces of pottery and we even built our own kiln to fire quick lime in which collapsed spectacularly as it reached top temperatures throwing on the wheel wasn't something i tried until i was about 16 or 17. i first saw my pottery teacher through a vars in what seemed like seconds and from that moment on i was pretty much hooked i'd be in the pottery in my lunch breaks after school throwing mostly functional vessels as that's where my interest lay and here are some collections of my very early pieces made during my first year on the wheel in early 2012 i also did a short work placement at the leech pottery in st ives assisting jack dougherty and the other production throwers albeit in a very limited way this was really my first experience working in a pottery outside of the school environment this entire time too i was looking at what to do next and it was during this time that i found out about the dc coi ceramic skills and design training course in thomastown ireland this was and still is a two-year course for 12 students at a time that focuses on teaching you the practical skills and ability you'll need to set up as a potter yourself again i don't have many photographs or videos from this time especially from the first year there so the pots you're seeing now are mostly the pieces that i made for the graduation exhibition in 2012 when i started this course there really wasn't a lot of other options especially if you wanted to learn how to make functional pottery at that time in the uk most of the other pottery courses were in decline and learning how to throw pots proficiently make glazes and fire kilns certainly wasn't what those courses were teaching which is what made this course an island just so brilliant and i was lucky enough to get one of those 12 spots after an interview and an aptitude test during the first year on this course the tutors really didn't care all too much about your own aesthetic it was all about increasing your practical skills and teaching you how to fire kilns and develop glazes then during the second year it was all about nurturing your own voice in clay and finding a style that you liked which is much easier said than done and i experimented with various clay bodies and glaze types before finally settling on this combination of high iron stoneware clay bodies and various crackle glazes all fired in a gas kiln in a reduction atmosphere which i think helps so much when you're learning to make pottery you need to experience as many different styles and methods as you can especially at the beginning and this course gave me that it gave me the fluency and the skills i'd need to progress i could likely very easily make one long video about this course but i'll move on to what happened next during my final term on this course lisa hammond came to give us a chawan making workshop and it just so happened that the week before she put an ad in ceramic review stating that she was searching for a new apprentice which i immediately applied for and thankfully i got the position two weeks after graduating the dc coi ceramics course i moved back to my hometown of london and i started work as lisa's apprentice i should note i'd already met lisa during the last year of my steiner education she helped to direct me away from the current uk university courses and ultimately that's what caused me to find the dccoi ceramics course i was lisa's ninth apprentice and there have now been 11 over a 25-year period essentially the apprentice's job here at maisel pottery is to help produce the soda-fired house range such as all the mugs the creamers the small jugs and bowls together with learning how to soda fire raw glaze run a pottery studio fire kilns teach workshops evening classes and help lisa with her own range of pots too it really is a lot of work and i remember feeling so overwhelmed during my first couple of weeks it's like being thrown in the deep end but it provided me with an unparalleled experience a chance to make pots and run a studio and hone my skills but without any of the financial risks that come with doing so yourself i was relatively slow at making it first but that quickly changed elise is very good at getting her apprentices to throw quickly together with learning how to run a busy pottery you also go with lisa to all the fairs and shows and exhibitions she does which gives you great insight into that world actually knowing how to sell your pots and conduct business is a skill in itself and is one that at the beginning can be very hard to get any experience in whereas experiencing it second hand like this helping set up shows and deliver pots how to wrap them for international shipping and all the other behind the scenes stuff is so very invaluable and it gives you a head start when you actually end up doing it yourself yet the part i found most valuable was learning how to raw glaze pack soda kilns and fire soda kilns too it's a process that's really actually quite rare these days so to have three years to really dive deep into it to develop those skills alongside all the throwing and the handle pulling and even all the connections you make along the way all the other potters you meet the work you see and the exhibitions these will make friendships so worthwhile in my opinion and i can't recommend them enough even if they can be quite difficult to find these days initially i was meant to be with lisa hammond for two years but as the third year came around she started to set up clay college in stoke on trent so she asked me whether i'd be on for staying another year to help keep the place running because she was incredibly busy and i'm so glad and i'm so lucky that i got to do this apprenticeship with her as truthfully i wouldn't be where i am today without her help and her support what you'll see now is a bunch of old footage i filmed it shows the creation of some of the functional wear range produced at mays hill pottery by myself and all the other apprentices that have been through those doors too this is a thick slip being brushed over with a hakame brush which is a bunch of straw bundled together lisa herself has spent a lot of time in japan over the years and you can see that influence in her work and techniques found there often infiltrate what's often very western functional pottery this connection to japan was fascinating and lisa would often tell me stories about her times there and the potter she'd met and ultimately i think it's that what led to me going there and doing my apprenticeship with ken matsuzaki later on the work i made during my apprenticeship with lisa really helped expose me to another world of ceramics i like to think of my own style as being quite simple with straightforward uniform surfaces muted neutral tones and very simple shapes yet this sodaway range is curvaceous covered in slip very organic due to the method is fired in as it ensures that each vessel is different from the last so to be given an experience where you throw a style of work that's completely out of your comfort zone does wonders for your own practical ability it was also during my time with lisa hammond that i started my instagram account which over time has become an integral part of my business and has allowed me to do what i love this was back in 2014 and initially it was just a way to keep my friends and family informed about my apprenticeship with lisa back then there weren't very many potters using instagram to document their work let alone sell it and week after week my following would grow quite substantially to the point that was really quite shocking i was writing about the work i was making with lisa and documenting the sodified process alongside posting photographs of my older work produced on the dccoi ceramic skills course i was consistent posting every day and that's continued to now too in fact i haven't missed a day since starting with a growing following online came a growing demand for my work too but i didn't really have much of my own work to sell at that point i was working full-time with lisa and i was only given time to produce my own work close to the holidays when there was a large maisel pottery christmas sale but as time went by in those first two years i did find moments to make more of my own work but i never dreamed of selling it online yet i was still getting used to firing the little laser gas skill in the maisel pottery which fired a bit sporadically as i only had burners on one side and these are some of the pots that i was making during that time which i think generally i was just under firing a little bit soon thereafter i got my first online shop ready to go and to my surprise it sold out in about two or three minutes flat which was completely overwhelming it's also worth noting that at this point i'd already accumulated perhaps 60 or 70 000 instagram followers so by the time i started to do my own online shops there was already an audience there waiting but still my focus was on lisa's work and helping to keep the studio running smoothly things did change though when i started my third year with lisa i now spent two days a week producing my own work and the remaining three i would spend doing hers and yet i really enjoyed making her work repetitively the house standard wear range fundamentally the shapes i was making are the same ones the apprentices years before me be making to but no two of us are the same our hands are different shapes and sizes and inevitably we make pots that just look slightly different even though we were all making the same forms with the same heights and diameters they'd still be different and it was always so fascinating to see the pots made by apprentices of the past to see their spin on things this video shows one of the creamers being thrown which i must have made countless thousands of they're a simple curved form which is then spouted and then once leather hard the forms are faceted using a spokeshave this was one of the making processes i found most difficult and i remember ruining the first patch i made of these about 30 or so as i cut holes in the walls of all of them but that's how you learn and it's also why i'm so grateful that i was able to do an apprenticeship with lisa as it gave me hundreds and hundreds of hours in which i could hone my skills and even if many of these techniques i don't use these days it still did so much for who i am as a potter and i do hope maybe that one day when i have my own land and space for kilns that i'll build my own soda kiln and after seeing just how valuable it is to do an apprenticeship i hope that one day too that i can pass my skills on in a similar way as it isn't easy becoming a potter in the initial step of starting your own studio urging all the equipment and trying to make it can be incredibly daunting so not only did my apprenticeship give me a deeper understanding of how to make pots it also gave me a wealth of information regarding the behind-the-scenes work which is sometimes just as important then as i approached the end of my apprenticeship he started to search for a new apprentice and there's always some overlap so the old apprentice can show the ropes to the new one which is so important when i started with lisa had the old apprentice not been there to show me how things are done it would have been a much more difficult process getting settled in and acquainted with all the multitude of tasks as i came closer to leaving lisa came up with the idea that she would ask her friend kaina matsuzaki in japan if i could go over there for six months to do a short apprenticeship with him in masco there's a chance you've already heard a lot about that experience via my instagram or via what i've said in my youtube videos but lisa was the one who helped to make the connection and it was a lovely way to round off the apprenticeship after so many years of discussing japanese ceramics and hearing about all her journeys in japan too so after three years being at maisel pottery is lisama's apprentice which really started to feel like a second home at that point i started to prepare for my apprenticeship in japan which came with a mother load of paperwork that needed to be done such as documents for the visa and everything else i spent hours in the japanese embassy and after some delays i was finally given my cultural activities visa which meant i could go to japan for six months to make pottery with ken matsusaki and mashko so with lisa's help and the help of ken matsuzaki's charity mpia which is masco potters association who funded my accommodation i finally set off to tokyo japan flying straight into super typhoon lan which only added a few extra hours onto the flight my accommodation was a small traditional flat in mashco about a 15-minute cycle ride away from ken matsuzaki's studio this is a picture i took towards the end of my time there with ken to my left and then doi his apprentice to my right and lastly ken's wife yoko on the far left mashko is a town famous for its pottery and here's an image i was a bit cautious to put into this video as you'll see but this is the town's mascot which is as tall as a three-story house ken matsuzaki himself was the apprentice to tatsu shimauka who himself was the apprentice to mingo master potter sushi hamada but this video isn't a history lesson so i won't go too much into that essentially my time in mashiko japan was to help ken matsuzaki with his production by whatever means possible ken's apprentice dory often told me what to do and one of our first jobs was to dig up some local clay and process it into a usable condition i spent days drying out clay and then shoveling it into this which would then smash it into a fine powder which would eventually be sieved and all the larger chunks added back to this machine until we got through all of it i think i spent more or less a whole week non-stop doing this and if i thought that working for lisa hammond was hard work i was in for an even bigger shock here at ken's i'd have to arrive at the pottery at eight o'clock then at 12 o'clock we'd have a one-hour break for lunch which usually involved me eating my lunch as fast as i could before sleeping for the last 45 minutes at five o'clock would finish i'd cycle home for supper and then at seven o'clock in the evening i'd cycle back and would start the evening shift which would end at about 10 or 11 p.m normally this happens six days a week we'd also have a quick tea break too at 3 p.m up at the house or in the studio there were other tasks too that we did every day such as sweeping the leaves in the autumn for about 2-3 hours every single morning or shoveling snow when winter game or even scrubbing clean the wooden exteriors of the studio or ken's house there were many other tasks in the first few weeks many of which i think were there to sort of test my might but after a while i was finally told that i would help ken throw younomi's for his main production i was to learn how to throw them on a traditional kick wheel which is something i've never done before and for the first week i think i probably spent about 60 hours sat at this wheel getting used to it ken would show me how to throw one and then go off to do his own thing and then come back later and show me what needed to be improved on or changed and after a hundred or so attempts i was finally making them to a degree that ken was happy with and thereafter i spent weeks throwing you know me for him every single day amongst many other tasks often late into the night whilst ken and boy were in the other part of the studio focusing on some other part of his production i'd be sat throwing you know me after you know me and after some initial growing pains i really started to love it the kick wheel is so engaging it's so physical and it was totally unlike anything i'd ever done before and compared to throwing on a normal wheel where you don't use your legs at all to suddenly using my right leg to kick the wheel all the time took some real getting used to of course i'm thankful for the experience as otherwise i'd probably never have pushed myself to throw off the hump like this but also to use a kick wheel and to make you know me too what i was throwing was the base shape which kem would then later on once the pots of a leather heart would finish off when the cups were leather hard me and boy would pile them into these polystyrene boxes which would keep the pots in that same condition for weeks and once i'd built up enough ken would spend a whole day trimming them and fasting the sides and finishing them off he's strange thinking back at this time now it really does feel like a dream i just wish i'd spent more time filming and taking even more pictures than what i have but i wasn't there to do any of that truthfully i was there to learn and i was there to experience what it's like working in a japanese pottery nothing else and i remember filming this the one day that ken and doi went to tokyo for business and i was left alone in the studio ken had set me the task of throwing 100 you know me in one day which i think i managed they aren't particularly complicated shapes but there are many little subtleties that need to be done right such as the curve of the interior the width and depth of the foot ring and the quality of the rim this is what they look like after ken had finished with them and here's the finished fired version placed in the traditional oribe style the next thing ken had me make was plates made in the style which again i'd never done before the bases of the plates were made from one block of clay sliced into one centimeter slabs i'd then roll out lots of thick clay coils and then wrap them with plastic to keep them soft the slabs were then put onto a wet patch on the wheel thrown a little bit and then i'd cut them into a perfect circle i'd then score and slip the outer diameter before adding the coil and throwing it into a thick outer flange to the diameter set by the tombow which is this measuring tool here then once the plates had dried out to leather hard i'd use a gouge to facet the flutes on the outer flange of the plate and finally i'd use a wooden kidney just to smooth the area where the facets meet the flat base of the plate we then coated them all with aurabiglaze in rice husk ash which produces the blue and fire them there are also other steps where you soak them in water and then soak them in acid and then soak them in water again but i don't have time to explain everything then winter came along and all the endless snow with it i spent christmas day working and new years alone and then in january ken went to chile to teach some workshops leaving me and dory to hold forth and so for the month ken was away i was given a month to make my own work which was all to be thrown using a coarse sugaracki clay and coated with shino and oribe glazes these pictures are from my cycling route to the studio it was fiendishly cold and my little apartment was not built for harsh winters nonetheless before the holidays began i measured both the shino kiln i'd be firing in and the much larger trolley or a bay kiln and i spent a few days in my holidays working out precisely how many pots i needed to make and how to fit them into the kilns which is what the next couple of photographs show i think in total to fill the two kilns i had to produce about 650 pots the idea being that at the end of this once everything was fired i'd have a small exhibition in the beautiful kanoa gallery in masco and then with all the leftover pots i'd ship them back to the uk and i'd sell them on my website which would fund all the equipment i needed to set up my own pottery studio once i returned back home to london once ken returned he and doi helped me pack the two kilns and we fired both in tandem the chino took six and a quarter days to fire and the oribe took three days to fire and thankfully dove was there the entire time to help me fire both and ken and his wife would provide us with meals every six hours on the dot which were always delicious if not sometimes a little strange such as macaroni sandwiches at the beginning of the firings the metal shed in which the kilns were situated was freezing cold outside in the evening it was snowing and up to negative 18 degrees centigrade so both doy and i huddled up to the kilns to keep warm but six days later when the chino kiln was reaching top temperature we'd be hiding behind objects as we slept as not to get too hot and then we unpacked them and what a shock there are certainly things i would do differently had i had the chance to do it all again there are many beautiful pots and there are many others that won't ever see the light of day again but all in all it was a fantastic learning experience and there's a good chance that i'll never make any work like this ever again which is how it should be and it makes the pots from this time all the more special i then spent a few days cleaning all the pots up and soaking the ore bay pots in water and then acid to bring out the colours and a few more days grinding pots that had stuck but i think that's quite common with aurabay glazes with oribe especially i've never made pottery that has such an extensive creation process there are so many steps there's coating on white slip the green orabay glazes then decorating them with high in pigment which is then coated over with a clear glaze then they're gasified in both an oxidized and reduced atmosphere then they're soaked in water for 24 hours then they're soaked in acid and then they're finally soaked in water again and i'm not even mentioning all the waddings that need to be ground away afterwards once all that was finally done ken and dory spent a good day inspecting everything and then selecting what would be shown in the exhibition and what pieces i'd be able to take home with me i think the few weeks leading up to this and the firing itself might be the most i've ever worked in my life i've never felt so much exhaustion together with so much joy at the same time and then a week or so later i had my exhibition at the conoya gallery in maschko it's such a beautiful space with a beautiful garden in a very traditional building again i just wish i'd taken more photographs and although this work was made by myself it doesn't really feel like mine it was made with a clay that is in mine and coated in glazes that certainly aren't reminiscent of the glazes i use but they do mark an important period during my ceramic education which i guess lasted from 2012 up until this point in 2018 i spent my last month helping ken prepare for a large wood firing he'd be doing i chopped 16 tons of wood and basically spent my entire time outside in the glorious sun together we're throwing a few more you know me and a few more plates too there's so much more i could have included in this part about japan and my apprenticeship would looser too but i think i'll have to save those for the book otherwise this video might end up being hours long i was lucky enough to spend my last few weeks with all the blossom and then i flew home back to london and that's almost it up until the present anyhow soon after i arrived back my giant crate with all the pots in from japan arrived and i spent a few weeks selling all those pieces online and shipping them out to the world some of them even ended up going back to japan and during this time i was searching for a studio in london which was no easy feat it ended up taking more than a year as i was looking for somewhere that had ground floor access double doors access to water access to gas for the gas kiln and then even once i'd found somewhere i had to wait for everything to arrive which took another couple of months but finally i did find a studio and this is where i've been ever since it's up in high barnet in the north of london and really i feel so lucky to have found it it's a large open space at about 650 square foot and it resides in what was an old industrial laundry with the help of my family i got the place set up tables and shelves built all funded from doing online shops over the years to my growing instagram audience so it's you guys who i really have to thank as i would definitely not be here without you then soon after my wheels arrived and finally my kilns arrived too i could get back to making in my own studio at last it really feels wonderful to have my own space my own routine my own kilns i really feel very lucky and that's where i am now i make work and i sell it online via my website with new collections going online maybe every couple of months or so and alongside making pots i've also been documenting how i do it mainly on instagram but now on youtube too and to all of you who have subscribed and decided to follow my journey along i'm really grateful hopefully there'll be many more exciting things to come and if you are interested in purchasing something please do head over to my instagram as that's usually where i announce when my sales will be there's also a newsletter on my website which gives you advanced notification too and if you have any more questions regarding my practice or the equipment i use or anything really just leave a comment down below and i'll do my very best to answer thanks so much for watching especially if you've made it this far and i'll see you in next week's video you

Channel: Florian Gadsby

Views: 102,822

Rating: 4.9512825 out of 5

Keywords: pottery, ceramics, Florian Gadsby, floriangadsby, how to make pottery, handmade pottery, stoneware pottery, pottery for beginners, handmade ceramics, pottery wheel, gas firing pottery, glazing pottery, how to glaze pottery, firing pottery, making pottery, how to fire pottery, reduction firing, Japanese pottery, maze hill pottery, Lisa hammond, soda firing, oribe pottery, shino pottery, Ken Matsuzaki, how to become a potter, ceramicist, potter, Florian Gadsby pottery, apprentice

Id: d9_EA_Zfo3Q

Length: 24min 46sec (1486 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 21 2021