Gary Wood makes stoneware and porcelain pots and wall pieces. He studied ceramics at Cumbria University and has exhibited and sold his work internationally in the UK, America, Japan, Germany and New Zealand over the last thirty years.

Inspiration comes from architecture, local landscape and textures and surfaces encountered through travelling in North Africa, Italy and North America.

The process of making itself contributes to the development of ideas – Carving, painting, layering, over-painting and multiple firing all add to the rich depth, surface quality and variegated colours of the work.

The Tea Bowls are first thrown and then carved on the wheel when damp but firm to the touch.

“ The way I work involves an element of chance and risk. I can set things up during glazing, by overlapping lots of different layers of colour and texture so that I have an idea of what might happen in the firing, but I relinquish a certain amount of control once the pots have gone into the kiln.

The results of this can be very exciting and no two firings are ever the same. Because of the serendipitous nature of this glazing and firing process, it is not possible to offer a very specific range of colours.

Within a series there will be a mixed, variegated selection of pots, which will repay close examination because of their intrinsic uniqueness. I aim to make the glaze empathise with the form, so there is a sympathetic relationship between them.”

Gary Wood