Elspeth Owen

Elspeth Owen

ELSPETH OWEN

The Oxford Ceramics Gallery29 Walton St.

OxfordOX2 6AA

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I live and work in Grantchester near Cambridge - my workshop is the former village cricket pavilion. My most familiar material is clay and my ceramic work has been widely shown in Britain and in Canada, Croa-tia, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and USA.

As a young woman I studied history at Oxford University and worked as an academic, a social worker and a teacher before I started going to pottery evening classes in the mid seventies. In place of an art school training I taught on the legendary Open University course Art and Envi-ronment. I have been a feminist since the time when it was called being

since the Aldermarston Marches and Greenham Common.

where the passage of time, the live process, is a key element.

Tender, direct, resilient, with a thin skin: that is how I think my work may touch you. To sustain working in this way means my remaining open to the emotions and sensations of an ordinary life. I keep slipping be-

-ally in more than one at a time, and with something up my sleeve!

Elspeth Owen

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In his essay on the connectivity of things Martin Heidegger uses a pot

base, are not its essence but that this lies in our sense of its contain-ment, The potential to receive and to hold is what links it to other things that make up our world. A resonant, brimming void. It is a useful way

-metry, subtle patina and modest scale evoke calm and contemplation. They are not so much pots to be looked at as pots that invoke all our senses in a visceral immersive experience.

its making. Each pot is formed from a single piece of clay, which is

-haps one of the most intimate ways of making a pot, indeed with the direct connection between the clay and the body of the maker it must be one of the most intensely tactile ways of making anything. The

interred by scraping and the application of slip (liquid clay) that has been stained with metal oxides to introduce a broad palette of delicate colours. These materials are enhanced as they react with salts and

-phisticated but they require skill and sensitivity and require experience

Owen has worked in a spacious, somewhat dilapidated, cricket pavilion

light. It bares the marks of its former life but also contains collections -

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a space that feels as if it has absorbed and accumulated many stories into the fabric of the building, which in turn Owen has embodied in her

sophisticated means to communicate, but these tools reinforce the hegemony of the audiovisual over our other senses and weakens our

through their material physicality, refer us to the immaterial.

Sebastian Blackie

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1 Small blue vessel 5 x 5 cm2 Small green/brown vessel 5 x 6 cm3 7.5 x 7.5 cm4 13.5 x 12 cm5 Tiny dark trumpet 3 x 8.5 cm6 Tiny light trumpet 3 x 9 cm7 Smooth trumpet 7.5 x 15.5 cm8 Smooth trumpet 8 x 15 cm9 Textured trumpet 6.5 x 19 cm10 Small coarse round vase no.1 7.5 cm tall11 Small coarse round vase no.2 8 cm tall12 All blue big bowl 12.5 x 18.5 cm13 Mottled small round vase 8 cm tall14 Smooth small round vase no.1 6.7 cm tall15 Smooth small round vase no.2 6.3 cm tall16 Smooth round vase 8 cm tall17 Mottled medium round vase 11 cm tall18 Large dark round vase 13 x 18 cm19 Necked blue pot 11.5 x 15 cm20 green/blue bowl 22 x 12 cm21 Coarse dark bowl 14 x 20 cm22 7 x 9.5 cm23 7 x 9.5 cm24 Blue oval bowl 18 x 12 cm25 Coarse dark bowl 18.5 x 12.5 cm26 Necked blue pot 13.5 x 14 cm27 Pale oval bowl 11.5 x 14 cm28 9 cm tall29 9.5 cm tall30 Large blue round vase 13 x 18 cm31 Narrowing blue bowl 13.5 x 9.5 cm32 9 cm tall33 Small blue pot 9.5 x 7 cm34 12 x 9 cm35 Pale inside bowl 9.5 cm tall36 Narrowing big blue bowl 16 cm tall37 Treasury dish 24 x 3.5 cm38 Dark dish 23 x 3.5 cm39 Pale dish 23 x 4.5 cm40 Large pale dish 5 x 30 cm41 Small green bowl 5 x 9 cm

42 Small blue/pink bowl 7 cm tall43 11 cm tall44 9.7 cm tall45 Pale bowl 9.5 x 17 cm46 15 x 15 cm47 16.3 x 13.5 cm48 Coarse red/brown bowl 13.8 x 19 cm49 Big bowl with pale inside 14.5 x 32 cm50 Wall hanging no.1 20 x 14 cm51 Wall hanging no.2 20 x 14 cm52 Wall hanging no.3 20 x 14 cm53 Wall hanging no.4 20 x 14 cm54 Wall hanging no.5 20 x 14 cm55 Tiny white bowl no.1 4 x 2 cm56 Tiny white bowl no.2 4 x 2 cm57 Tiny white bowl no.3 4 x 2 cm58 Tiny white bowl no.4 4 x 2 cm59 Tiny white bowl no.5 4 x 2 cm60 Tiny white bowl no.6 4 x 2 cm61 Tiny white bowl no.7 4 x 2 cm62 Tiny white bowl no.8 4 x 2 cm63 Tiny white bowl no.9 4 x 2 cm

Essay by Sebastian Blackie,Artist & Professor of Ceramics,

University of Derby

Photography ©2012 James Fordham

www.oxfordceramics.com