Ceramic Colour Magic: Insights from Sara Moorhouse

[00:00:00] Ceramics, Bob Acton, C.R.A. The surfaces are not glazed. I use underglaze and I've tried them with glaze on and what happens is if they're shiny as well as highly kind of coloured and banded, all that happens is it's quite difficult to look at because the shine has quite a glare and you kind of get vertical glare lines, kind of reflective lines against the bands of colour that are going around.

[00:00:30] So I don't use a glaze, I just use an underglaze and keep them nice and matte so you can read the colours and the effects. You can read the effects more easily that way. Welcome to the Colour and Ceramics Podcast. I'm Bob Acton and I'm pleased to introduce to you the wonderful Sara Moorhouse.

[00:00:51] Her work on ceramics, colour and spatial perception began with a master's degree at Cardiff in Wales and then onto a PhD to develop the ideas with more emphasis upon spatial colour phenomena on a three-dimensional form. She went beyond the basics of colour theory and tested out ideas on the conical form.

[00:01:18] She found that colours behave differently when viewed across three-dimensional space rather than on a two-dimensional surface, particularly on the inner bowl form where illusions can appear much stronger. And Sara and I talked about a job she had on colour that will surprise you. And you can find all about her on her website at sarahmoorhouse.com. Enjoy the show.

[00:01:55] Welcome to Colour and Ceramics, the podcast for ceramic artists who want valuable ideas about using colour from leading artists and world-class experts. Here's your host, Bob Acton, a sculptor and ceramic artist who's fascinated with colour and how potters, sculptors and artists use colour in their work. Tune in as he talks with his guests about colour, techniques and the impact of colour on people and art itself.

[00:02:21] Sara, thank you so much for joining us today on the Colour and Ceramics Podcast. I'm super excited about you being here with your gorgeous work. So, thanks very much for being here. Yeah. You know, your work is really simply gorgeous. I have been wanting to have you on the podcast for some time because I think your work really strikes a chord with what we're trying to accomplish here around the whole notion of colour and surface design.

[00:02:51] You know, the colours and blends and vibrancy that your work really brings to the viewer is really superb. But I know that you have done a lot of work to get here today. This just didn't happen overnight. And so I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your master's and your PhD and sort of your training that got you here today. Yeah, sure.

[00:03:17] So I was actually a teacher in my 20s, an art teacher. My first degree was in illustration. And then I did a PGC and taught art for six years. But I had a lot of ceramics in my portfolio because on my foundation, I'd done quite a lot of ceramics, but then decided against that route for a degree. For some reason, I'm not really sure why.

[00:03:42] And then six years later, I decided to retrain and go back into ceramics. So I moved down to Cardiff to do an MA and just kind of had the best year. It was one of those years where everything that I'd done so far kind of came together. So kind of typically in my past on foundation, people had said, oh, you're a 3D person. And then on my illustration years, they told me that I worked well with colour.

[00:04:10] And so then on this one year of my MA, it was kind of really all about finding myself, I suppose, and finding what excited me visually. And it wasn't until probably until about the April, May is a September to September course that I had a really pivotal tutorial with a teacher that he'd only just started teaching on the MA at that point. He'd taught on it previously, but he was off teaching on textiles.

[00:04:41] And he came back and I had this tutorial and he looked at what I was doing and he said, he listened to me kind of waffle on about this big idea. And he said, yeah, it kind of looks quite self-conscious. What did you do before? And I told him about my past and my interest in colour. And I was throwing, I was doing quite a lot of throwing. I wanted to learn a skill whilst I was on the MA. And he said to me, well, you seem to like throwing and you seem to like colour. So why don't you do something with that? And I kind of went, OK.

[00:05:11] And I spent the rest of the day just kind of walking around with my head in the clouds, just feeling quite relieved, actually, because the things I was making before weren't right. And then the day after I went home, slept on it. And the day after I went into the studio and just banded a bowl without really thinking about it. And it felt nice. It felt right. And I just abandoned it with colours just intuitively. The colours didn't really mean anything at the time.

[00:05:39] But around that time, I was doing quite a lot of travelling from Cardiff to Nottinghamshire and back because my mum was ill. So I was going home quite a lot the weekends to see her. And the Nottinghamshire countryside had always inspired me as a child. I'd always really enjoyed the sensation of looking at ploughed lines across fields.

[00:06:02] And I also noticed how dramatically the landscape changed when the colours changed, when the seasons changed. So a field that might be kind of brown in the winter and then speckled with the little green shoots in the spring. And then a few weeks later, it would be covered in bright yellow rapeseed. And it was just a lot bigger. The space seemed much bigger when it was covered in yellow. And the lines had a dramatic effect on the viewing of the landscape as well.

[00:06:31] So I was seeing all of this again as I was driving through the landscape a lot during spring to visit my mum. And at the same time, I started banding bowls. And I kind of went, ah, that's what I'm doing. I'm putting colour and line onto a ceramic bowl form. And it's affecting the, the way it appears. It's affecting the volume of the bowl and it's affecting the way the shape appears.

[00:06:58] So that's, that's what the practice became about. It became about the perception of colour and line on, on a ceramic bowl form. And inspired really by the arable landscapes of North Nottinghamshire. Hmm. That is lovely. Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting how our backgrounds often come to the fore with this work that we do, right?

[00:07:25] And that sometimes we have to figure that out and find that in our work. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. I mean, I just remember as a child, there was a field up the road and we used to walk the dog and we'd walk up the road and we'd pass this field and then walk through the woods. But this field was, was, was arable in nature and it, and it changed.

[00:07:50] So I remember walking past that field and just feeling a sense of just kind of joy and wonderment looking at, looking at the lines and the sense of perspective and the way that made me feel. It was almost as if I felt sort of almost projected across the space by the, by the drama, the dramatic effect of the lines. And, and, and that still excites me today.

[00:08:15] I'm still thrilled when I see a stripey field and it just, you know, it doesn't go away. Um, so yeah, I've been doing, I went, my dad now lives in Sheffield actually. Um, and very, very close to the Yorkshire Dales. So last summer I, I took myself off in the car and, um, start sketching. And it was a similar, a really similar kind of landscape, a little bit more dramatic. It's quite rolling arable landscape in Nottinghamshire.

[00:08:42] It's more, it's more dramatic, more hilly in, in the Yorkshire Dales, I'd say. Um, but very, very similar. And I just was sort of a gog the whole time. I was just going, I've got to stop my car here. I've got, I've got to stop my car over there. I'll just draw that and I'll draw this. It was just, it was just wonderful to see the different colours and the lines, um, that affect the viewing of a space. Absolutely. I can see the joy and I hear the joy in your voice as, uh, as you talk about it.

[00:09:13] Um, uh, so you didn't take any photographs. It sounds like you drew pictures. Is that part of your process as opposed to doing photographs? Um, I did take photographs as well, actually. Yeah. Um, I took them, I took quite a lot of photographs of one, one space, um, a little bit like David Hockney's photo montages. I did that to lots of photographs and kind of like piece them all together.

[00:09:41] Um, and I've only just started drawing again. It's been a long time. Um, um, had my son 13 years ago now. And, um, every time we'd go up to Sheffield, we'd just go and visit play parks and find ice cream, you know, but now it's a little bit older. Um, I'm allowed to go off by myself and, uh, and, and look again and, and draw again. And I was quite nervous when I started doing it.

[00:10:05] I spent a day making what I thought was awful things, all sketches. Um, and then the day after I, I, I just tried again and I started using pencil cranes and changed the material, the medium and, uh, and yeah, colored pencil cranes have always been one of my favorite ways of sketching. Um, so I went back to that and it's, and it was easier. And I just found, I found myself again with the drawing.

[00:10:32] Um, and yeah, and I'm hoping to kind of develop some new colorways from those drawings and put it into my stomachs. Um, probably next year. Yeah, that's very good. Yeah, absolutely. So you did your master's degree at Cardiff and you had this epiphany, I guess, happen with the instructor who, uh, moved you in a different direction. Um, and, and you went back and did a PhD. Uh, tell us about that. Yeah.

[00:11:01] Um, so the same tutor, um, said to me, um, that so typically in ceramics, um, I think people have been interested in how to create color as in the chemistry of color. Um, and it hasn't really been looked at in research in terms of, um, the perception of color. So the way, the way color is perceived to the way it can alter space.

[00:11:27] Um, so I had to kind of do a little bit of groundwork and look at the ceramicists who use color. And it hasn't, no one's really ever really looked at it in terms of perception. There's not really anything written on it. So he said to me, well, there's a PhD there. If you want to do one, um, I'd never really given it much thought doing a PhD. Um, but he said to me that I could write well enough, which is again, something I didn't know.

[00:11:52] So it's quite interesting when you, you know, I was 30 and I was realizing these things, these hidden kind of skills that I didn't know I had, you know, um, I was like, okay, well, if I, you know, that sounds like a good plan. And I was really, really enjoying the learning. I think having been a teacher for six years, um, and, you know, really felt what it was like to work, um, to be back in a, in a position where I was learning again was just really exciting.

[00:12:22] So, um, this same tutor we, um, with him, we applied for some funding. So I got a, I got a funded PhD. So there was, you know, there's no reason not to do it really. And he was then my director of studies and, um, the PhD was about, uh, about looking at the way colors affect the perception of the three dimensional, um, ceramic conical form specifically the conical form.

[00:12:49] Um, and we, yeah, we chose, well, I chose that shape because, um, with a curved shape, if it's convex or concave, there's an emphasis on the inside or the outside. But I felt that with a strictly straightforward form, a conical shape, you could see the inside and the outside more equally. And I was really interested in the relationship between the inside and the outside.

[00:13:13] So, um, and you have to kind of limit your parameters a little bit when you're doing a PhD, can't go off too broadly or just gets too big. So we stuck to the, the, um, the conical shape and, um, and yeah, I did some sort of field studies, um, in a place in Brecon called, um, Table Mountain. And then later on, I went out to Switzerland to, to a place called Lucerne to look at the Riggie Mountain, which is a mountain that, um, Turner painted.

[00:13:43] And there's these, uh, lovely three paintings by Turner, um, called the Blue Riggie, the Red Riggie and the Dark Riggie, all painted at different times. And they all look completely different. Um, so in terms of space and, um, you know, how, how big they look, how small they look, how far away, but they're actually all painted from the same spot, um, and on the same size kind of canvas.

[00:14:08] So I went out there to kind of do my own field studies of the Riggie and compare the, the light and the colors to Turner's paintings. And then I based, um, I used, I used that to base some of my own work on. So I, I've created a series of bowls called the Riggie. Um, and they were, yeah, they were kind of like the, the final kind of practical things that I made on the, um, on the PhD. Um, but yeah, I discovered some interesting things.

[00:14:37] I, um, I discovered a, an interesting illusion that I called the tilt effect. So on the inside of the wall, um, it was just where you've got two wide bands next to each other. So they, it's not really stripy. It's just, it's just, just, there's just what this one edge between these two wide areas of color on the inside of the bowl form at that point where those two, uh, two bands meet. Um, the top band appears to tilt backwards. Um, and it's quite a strong illusion.

[00:15:07] It just kind of tilts and curves backwards. Um, so I called it the tilt effect and, um, yeah, it's just, that was probably the main finding from my PhD. And I've used a little bit since and, you know, you can see it in some of the artworks that I make now. Very cool. Uh, so what else did you learn from your PhD that really you begin to apply to your work today?

[00:15:35] What, what, aside from what you've talked about already, uh, what else, uh, gets applied? Um, I mean, the, the notion of ambiguity came into, into it quite a lot. So, um, the sense that when you, when you're looking at a landscape and it, and it, and it's always changing, um, it never really seems the same. Every time you go back to it in that sense that it is the same, but it doesn't appear the same.

[00:16:03] So the sense that, you know, you have, you have this form, you have a bowl form. Um, and the viewer probably knows it's a conical shape, but it doesn't quite look conical because it's being pulled and drawn in this direction or the other. So this sort of sense of ambiguity, um, became quite a key feature of things that I was making and, and, and really it's kind of like, um, it's like a positive aesthetic in art.

[00:16:32] You know, I looked at other artists, I looked at sculptors, and then this notion of ambiguity is something that artists use to kind of, I don't know, as the main sort of aesthetic of the piece. It kind of draws people in and makes them question, um, question the form. Um, it's like a visual conundrum. So that was, that was something that, um, that I kind of looked at.

[00:16:56] Um, and I think the other thing it did was it made me really, really look, and it, it made me really look at the comparisons between a group of bowls. So to, to find things out. So for example, at the tilt effect, I did several, several bowls, um, several different shapes. I started off with this, with a cylinder, and then I made a tilt, um, a conical form that was, um, that only had a slight angle.

[00:17:24] And then another one with a lower angle and a lower angle and so on, and painted exactly the same colors on each one to compare, um, which shape gave the best effect. So that kind of idea of comparison where you have a series of forms, a series of the same shape or slightly different shape, but the same surface. Um, that, that was kind of like, um, something that I, I looked at quite a lot and I think have used since.

[00:17:51] I like making groups of forms now and looking at the relationship between a group of forms. Um, yeah. And then I think the other thing is, is the writing. I think a little bit like, like conversation, a bit like the way, you know, we're talking now. I think when you have a conversation with somebody about, about art or your art, it can help. It can help you realize what it's about before you've verbalized it.

[00:18:18] Sometimes you don't know until you start to talk. And I find the same thing with writing as it's like, as soon as I sit down and start typing or writing with a pen and thinking and looking at the artwork, it may, it helps me get to know it. And it, it helps me realize what it's about. And, and sometimes where ideas have come from because it's some off quite often, it's intuitive and you don't know at the time.

[00:18:42] Um, so the writing, um, was a really kind of useful tool and it's something that I still use today. Just sometimes I'll sit down and just have a look at something and, and see what, see what comes, see what happens. Right on. The, the, the thing that I'm hearing you talk about is kind of an experimentation that you have with your work.

[00:19:04] That, uh, whether it's in the writing that I'll call that an experiment when you're starting to think about it a bit more and, um, and the playing with different forms and looking at the colors and the effect that that has on the perception of the piece, uh, through that, uh, sort of, I'll almost call it a scientific, uh, approach to the work. Yeah, no, I think it is. I think that's, I think that's what the PhD kind of allowed for.

[00:19:33] It allowed me that time to really, really explore and experiment and, and to really, I suppose to really push an idea. I mean, I looked at the tilt effect a lot. There were quite a lot of bowls that looked at, that referred to that and looked at it and I examined that idea. Um, and yeah, I'd actually, that's a really good point. I'd not thought that I think I do. I do work like that now.

[00:19:57] So like the Saturn collection, which is, um, I'm still making Saturn bowls now. Um, that started five years ago and it's my longest standing kind of, um, probably most successful collection of works kind of to date, but it keeps on, it keeps on going. It keeps on growing. It gets to the point where I finish a body of work and I think, oh, I've had enough of that. I don't want to do it again. I'm bored of those colors. And, but then I, you know, I have a break and I come back to the drawing board again.

[00:20:27] I go, oh, actually, but I've not tried it. If I, if I do it on that shape or if I use the same colors, but in, in the, in a different arrangement. Um, so I, yeah, I think it did teach me to really, really interrogate an idea and get more out of it because it's surprising. I think the, the amount that you can do that. Mm hmm.

[00:20:50] I mean, I think that's really good learning for people who are listening to this is to think about their own work and how they could begin to apply that methodology of really getting into it in a deep way and trying multiple iterations of form and color to experiment with their thought. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:13] It's, um, sometimes it's just changing a little thing, you know, and looking at a nuance and, and it moves it forward in ways that you wouldn't imagine, you know, and then, and then one thing leads to another. And before you know it, it's sort of five years later and you, and you're still on the same collection. You think, how did that happen? Um, but yeah, I've, I've got some pieces I just made recently for, for an online sale that, um, you know, I'm really happy.

[00:21:40] I really, really like, you know, and I'm like, and all I did was change the color of the rim and change the angle. So I'm working with angular shapes now and I just changed the act, the shapes a little bit. Um, but, but the proportions by changing the proportions a little bit, the whole form seems very, very different. And by changing that one color on the rim, it, um, it, yeah, it, it just has, has a huge impact.

[00:22:05] Um, and I think when you start, you start, you delve so deep sometimes that all those little things, you notice the differences that they make. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And that's what makes it so special. Um, yeah, absolutely. Um, now your work for people who haven't seen your work yet is, uh, bright colors on white. And so can you talk, not all, it's not always white, but a good portion of it is white.

[00:22:32] Can you just, can you describe for people your work and what they, uh, will see when they look at it? Um, yeah, so they're, um, they're thrown shapes on the wheel. Um, but then I throw them as thin as I can pieces. Sorry, I've lost you on your, our connection died. So I lost you part way through that sentence.

[00:23:01] Could you start again? So you said, you said that, uh, I'd asked you about, um, uh, the color and what they looked like. And could you describe it? Can you start that again? For some reasons we died. I'm going to shut my camera off because that might help. Yeah. Okay. Um, yeah. So, uh, they're all, they're thrown on the wheel.

[00:23:27] And, um, so a conical, you know, a lot of them are kind of conical shape or what I tend to do is kind of, um, sometimes I'll, I'll make a conical shape and I'll, I'll push the wall out and in slightly to make a kind of wave, wave shape to the wall.

[00:23:53] Um, and I take them off the wheel and then put them back on when they're leather hard and turn them. Um, so the walls end up being quite fine. They're quite thin pieces. Um, and I turned the rim so that it curves on the inside side, just a little bit to the outer edge. So there's a quite a nice edge, which helps, helps me to paint the inside against the outside. Actually, it helps me to get that nice crisp line around the rim.

[00:24:20] Um, and then I band them, um, usually with bright colors, not always. Um, so I hold a brush still as the wheels going round and a band, um, different, different colors on next to each other. If I'm doing say like, um, yellow next to like an orange, what I might do is band the whole section in yellow to start with like a wide section and then paint the orange bands on top.

[00:24:49] Um, some of the bands are quite fine. Some of them are really only like a millimeter or so wide and other, um, so they tend to vary up to that, you know, to about maybe a centimeter in width. Um, and they're quite dry. So the surfaces are not glazed. I use under glaze, um, and I've tried them with glaze on.

[00:25:12] And what happens is, um, if they're shiny as well as highly kind of colored and banded, um, all that happens is it's quite difficult to look out because, because the shine, um, has quite a glare. Um, and, and you kind of get vertical glare lines, kind of, um, reflective lines against the bands of color that are going around. So I don't use a glaze. I just use an under glaze and keep them nice and matte.

[00:25:41] Um, so you can read the colors and the effects. You can read the effects more easily, um, that way. Yeah. Yeah. I, I love the non glazed, uh, surfaces as well. Um, you know, I, but I'm intrigued with some technical things with your work in the sense that your work has such fine lines. I mean, they're exact. Um, and I know that's a challenge with a brush sometimes is to get that exact line.

[00:26:10] How do you do that? What's your, without giving your secrets away, of course, but, uh, what, how do you, how do you do that? Um, yeah, I think, um, I, I mean, I've been doing it for a long time. It's been, I've been doing it for 20 years. So, um, they've got more precise and finer as, as the years have gone on. But what I do basically is I rest my arms on the wheel tray just in quite a natural position.

[00:26:36] And, um, as a wheel is going round, I hold onto, I paint with my right hands. My elbows are on the wheel tray and I hold my right hand, my right wrist with my left hand. And I hold the brush, um, steady onto the form as it's going round. So it's a slightly different action for the inside and the outside. The outsides are a little bit easier.

[00:27:00] The insides, I have to kind of like prop my elbows up a little bit higher and tilt the brush down lower into the shape. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think over the years you get to know what the right thickness of paint is, um, to get an optimum line. Um, you know, if it's too thick, it won't flow off the brush properly. Um, but I think that all just comes with experience.

[00:27:27] Um, if it's too watery, if it's too thin, then, you know, it might just kind of like, you might get a blob as well, just ruining the lines. So yeah, it's just, um, yeah, time, I suppose, and practice. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Now, uh, what's your approach to the selection of colors that you use? Um, you know, that's obviously very well thought through for you. Uh, how, how do you think about the, um, palette?

[00:27:57] I guess if we use that word to, uh, in your approach. Um, so I started off, um, looking at landscapes. Um, and I think my very first, um, body of work, um, back going back to the MA was called arable landscape. And, um, at the time, um, I was looking at the landscape.

[00:28:23] There were lots of, um, I saw, I was seeing poppy fields and quite a lot of orange. Um, so the colors came directly from that. And I was interested in at the back at the time, um, referring to the outside as the sky and the inside as the land.

[00:28:40] So on that particular body of work, um, there's a dark green and a light green, which, um, are on the inside to represent the land and also the red and, and, um, the orange. But then on the outside, there were two blues with the same red and orange. Cause I always kind of get this sense that. I don't know. Color is kind of reflected in sky and sky reflected in color. And I think I was trying to get that across with that body of work.

[00:29:08] Um, I made a piece called storm around the same time with some really lovely dark blues, um, and yellows and lime greens. Um, I've made, um, a small body of work, um, called yellow, about yellow rapeseeds fields. Um, and, uh, one of my current, the two current collections I'm working on, um, one is called Saturn, as I've mentioned.

[00:29:39] And the other one is winter. Um, so I, I kind of hold with the fact that the majority of my work stems from the idea I discussed about landscape and, and color changing form. So, and colors come directly from landscape. Sometimes they come from color theory and color theories that I read about. Um, but Saturn, um, comes from a commission that I got from, um, through Joanna Byrd Gallery in London.

[00:30:09] Um, so in 2019, Joanna asked me, um, to make a commission for NASA, um, because they wanted an artwork to auction at the 2019, um, anniversary celebrations for the Apollo moon landing, the fifth year anniversary. So, um, she, she was asked to find enough to find an artist to make an artwork that represented space in some way. Um, so she asked me to fulfill it and I made Saturn.

[00:30:38] And during my research, I found this fabulous picture of Saturn seen through an infrared lens, which shows colors that the naked eye can't see. So it had got this fabulous kind of turquoise blue, a dark, a dark blue, a red, uh, an orange and a limey kind of yellow. Um, and they just, I immediately knew that it was a really good color combination. So I made a Saturn bowl back then.

[00:31:04] And, um, and I'm still, as I mentioned earlier, still making Saturn. So that was quite an unusual place. I never expected a color palette to come from, uh, anything like that. I didn't think I would be making balls about space. Um, but yeah, I mean, but, but yeah, it is, it was, it was really exciting. And, um, and, and it still is really, you know, to kind of, um, I just shown with John a bird, um, recently. And, um, it was quite nice.

[00:31:33] She had a 30 year, um, um, exhibition, um, anniversary exhibition. And I showed some of the current Saturn pieces in that exhibition. So it was kind of nice. It had come kind of full circle. It came from her and, um, um, Saturn pieces have moved on since then, but they're, they're in that exhibition. Um, yeah. And, and the winter, um, colorway that I work with at the moment.

[00:31:57] Um, I, that was just very intuitive and just a selection of colors that I, that I happened upon one day in the studio. I mean, I've got tiles all over the place, kind of all over the, all over the studio. And sometimes I'll just sort of be, I don't know, sitting on the wheel, like doing something and look up and look across at some tiles and just kind of my eye just sort of selects colors out. And I think, oh, that'll look nice of that color.

[00:32:26] And then, uh, and then I move them around and then I put colors next to each other. So it's very, sometimes it can be quite playful. And I, and I happened to put, um, this beautiful dark green. Um, it's like a very wintry, um, green, dark green, um, like an evergreen and a very dark blue and an ice blue and white next to each other. And, and painted a bowl with those colors.

[00:32:52] And it wasn't, again, it was, it was one of those things that wasn't till afterwards that actually I realized what it was because I'd, that year I'd also, um, got a dog in the October. And so I started walking a lot more and, um, I made these bowls the winter, the first winter bowl, I think it was in the January. Um, so I realized that they'd come from my walks. Those colors had come from what I was seeing.

[00:33:18] Um, so yeah, that's, that's now kind of like the winter collection, which is based on walks with my dog. Yeah. That's really cool about how, uh, how you think about color and how you apply color to your work. Do you, um, how does color, uh, uh, interplay with form for you? Um, so color moves in space.

[00:33:46] So colors, um, by that, I mean, um, so if you think of a typical landscape painting with, um, a pale blue, uh, sky, um, quite, um, you know, maybe a watery kind of blue, and then the objects in the foreground will be much stronger in color. Um, so, so blue is typically a recessive color. It recedes in space.

[00:34:10] Uh, red is the most advancing color, um, which is why we use it, you know, quite obviously in kind of for alert sign, stop signs, that kind of thing. Um, but it really stands out more than any other color. Um, uh, yellow is a really expansive color. Yellow just makes things really wide and big. Um, so colors, all different colors have different properties like that.

[00:34:34] So when I put color onto a, onto a form, um, I'll look at the shape of the bowl, the piece that I've got in front of me. And sometimes it's conscious. I think sometimes it's, it's subconscious, but I kind of make a decision as to whether I'm going to go with the form with the color or not.

[00:34:54] Um, so if there's a, you know, if there's a nice wide kind of bowl, uh, and I want to emphasize the width, maybe particularly at the rim. If I put yellow around the rim, I know that it will really emphasize the width of that and make it seem wider than what it is.

[00:35:17] If I want to pull it in, I might use, um, a darker color, like, um, a darker blue or dark green or, um, or even a red. But I mean, then yeah, colors really complicated. I mean, um, when I did my PhD, I was, um, I gave some talks about, about my work and color and I was, um, at this, um, sorry, I just say, lost my train of thought.

[00:35:46] Um, there, there are color researchers throughout the world, uh, who look at color from a science perspective and still don't understand color fully. So I was invited to talk at one of these, um, events at Congress. Um, and so I was surrounded by color scientists and I was like the only artist in the room. Um, but they were great. I mean, they really kind of took what I was saying, what my findings quite seriously.

[00:36:13] I talked about the tilter effect when I was there, but I mean, I think the point I'm trying to make is that, um, there were, there were kind of these rules about color that you read about color theory. And, um, you kind of think, oh, if I do that, if I put those two colors together, it will do that. And I've, I've looked a lot at the way colors react in space, but the way they react in a room or the, or the way they react on a three dimensional solid object. And then the way they react inside a bowl shape can be kind of different.

[00:36:43] Um, so it's still, it's still like a massive area for, for research. And I don't kind of look at it with a research head on as much anymore. It's still there because I've had that training, but, um, but yeah, uh, certain colors don't always behave in the way that you think they're going to. Let's just put it that way. Um, so I consciously think, oh, if I, I'm going to try and make it do this, but then it might go and do something else.

[00:37:11] Um, just because I put it on the wrong part of the bowl form. Um, yeah, that's, that's pretty exciting in a way that you've got so many variables to play with. Um, I mean, you've got the color itself, of course, but then you've got the shape of the bowl and whether it's on the inside or the outside and, and the relation of color to that. And then there's the room that it's in, that it's going to impact.

[00:37:39] And of course the light, uh, that's in that room where the bowl sits, um, is also at play. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All those, everything, everything makes a big difference. Um, I mean, there's a, there was a funny kind of incident.

[00:37:57] Um, I suppose one year I, I've been, um, I did a fair, uh, I do fairs sometimes throughout the year and, um, it was in the summer and there was in a marquee and, um, there was a really, really bright, sunny and a really hot day. We're having a bit of a heat wave actually on my stand. I'd got, I'd got satin bowls, which are my brightest probably color way I've ever made. And I'd got winter bowls, which are nice kind of calm, cool colors.

[00:38:25] And, um, on the really, really hot day, people were drawn towards the winter bowls. They, they would look at some people would look at the satin colors and go, Oh, you know, as if, as if they were just too much on that day. Um, so I only sold winter bowls on that day. And then the day after, I think the, the temperature probably, I think halved with some really funny weather.

[00:38:51] Um, so it went down to about 15 or 16 degrees and was quite cold. And, um, and people bought the satin bowls. It was, they were kind of buying the opposite. So it's yeah. So yeah. Environment lighting has a huge impact has it on, on the way they, they look and the way they read.

[00:39:12] And I was talking to a chef one time who talked about how, uh, he sells hot soup mostly on hot days as opposed to cold days. So, uh, uh, in a way it's that same kind of odd relationship between the environment and, and what we're working with. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting.

[00:39:39] Hey, hey, do you have any, um, I mean, what challenges have you experienced? What's, what's one challenge that you experienced and have overcome in your work? Um, if I've overcome it, uh, um, throwing large is, is a challenge for me. I have kind of overcome in a way. Um, so, well, I wanted to, I wanted to make bigger work.

[00:40:08] Um, and I went, um, quite a few years ago now, probably eight or nine years ago, I went on a, a large throwing course, um, with Joanna Howells and, um, and learned how to grow pots. So you kind of throw a bowl and then you kind of like wait for it to dry and add more on and throw the, throw the piece that you've added on. And you sort of, you know, she called it growing them. Um, and I, and I did that and that was fine and I could do it.

[00:40:35] But the only problem I found with that was because the bigger you go with, with clay, um, the more, um, warpage there seems to be. So, so when I put the big bowl in the kiln and fired it, it came out slightly off center. I mean, all my bowls are slightly off center. There's not one of them. I would say that it's a hundred percent. It's just, you can't really tell because it's not, not a lot. And, um, the lines kind of take over anyway.

[00:41:02] Um, but they have to be, um, a certain level of symmetry there for me to be able to hold a brush still and paint them in a mouth banding on each side. Um, so when, when I've got this big bowl and it's gone off off by, you know, maybe about a centimeter, you know, that you would know, because again, it's, if I were to put a glaze on it, it would be fine. There's nothing, nothing wrong with the bowl, but to paint it is impossible.

[00:41:29] Um, so I didn't really solve that problem that way. And I, you know, I, I still haven't really, I'm still struggling with that one, but what I did do is make an assemblage instead. So I made, um, uh, across three shelves, uh, an assemblage of 27 bowls and kind of, so it was almost like a picture. It's almost kind of like looking at a picture, looking at these 27 bowls in a cabinet.

[00:41:53] Um, it was represented, um, a landscape, like a Yorkshire landscape scene. Um, so yeah, I kind of, I kind of overcame the problem a little bit, but, but not fully. Um, maybe I just need to practice a bit more. Well, that's the thing with clay. It seems like it's a constant challenge, right. Of, uh, encountering some sort of problem and then finding a way around it.

[00:42:22] I think lots, lots of times ceramic artists are great problem solvers. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think so. I mean, I mean, one of my ideas at the moment is maybe to work, um, to work with someone actually, to get someone to throw me, um, a bowl that isn't, um, off, you know, that isn't, uh, wonky. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That could, that could be a quick solution to the problem.

[00:42:52] Yeah. Yeah. A collaboration. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking actually, because I still like to do it. I still really like to go big. Um, but, um, yeah, maybe that'll be the way forward. Right on. Um, hey, do you have any, uh, advice for a junior potter or, or maybe a senior potter who wants to, uh, do work similar to yours? What, what kind of things would you suggest people focus on as they get better at their

[00:43:22] craft? To do work similar to mine or just, just around? No, it doesn't have to be similar to yours. It could be, uh, their own work, but, um, I always ask our guests for a little tidbit. Um, I mean, practice and practice really does, you know, um, make perfect.

[00:43:48] Um, but I think, I think the thing that I found really was, I knew, I knew I wanted to learn to throw. It was just a feeling. Um, and to go back to those things that I was making on the MA that I didn't like looking back and my tutor spotted that. It saw through me straight away. Um, I was cutting balls up when I was sitting on the table. I was cutting balls up and reassembling them. And I, it was very static kind of.

[00:44:15] I was sitting and I would like cut something and I would score it and I would like paint slip on and then I'd stick it to another bit and like make these things. Um, it never felt very nice inside, you know, it didn't feel right. My body didn't feel right. Um, so, and you know, it came out in the work. So, you know, it's got to feel right.

[00:44:40] So if, if you feel like you're working on something and it's hard and it doesn't maybe feel right and maybe it's not even, maybe it's not getting better very quickly. Just think about how you feel when you're doing it. And if you don't feel quite right, then maybe that's the wrong thing to practice because practice does make perfect, but I think you've got to be doing the thing that feels good. Um, you've got to practice the right thing. Um, for sure.

[00:45:07] I mean, I hear you there that we can practice the wrong thing. Uh, and, and by practicing the wrong thing, our work's not going to get better. So it's a combination of technical skills, which you get through practice and having this right feeling, uh, an emotional connection to the piece, uh, at the same time. To make it, uh, in the right space. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:45:36] It's like a gut feeling, isn't it really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sarah, Sarah, I want to say thank you so much for being here with us today. This has been fantastic. I really appreciate this. The conversation has been fantastic. I hope that people really, uh, enjoy your, uh, thoughts about your work and, and get a chance to go and have a look at your work for sure.

[00:46:01] And, uh, the, um, uh, everything will be up on our website in terms of, uh, where to find you on Instagram and on your, uh, on your website. Well, thank you. Thanks very much. It's been, it's been lovely to talk to you and thanks for the opportunity. Thanks for listening to the color and ceramics podcast with Bob Acton and his guests.

[00:46:26] Please help others find the podcast by subscribing to this podcast, wherever you find your podcasts, such as iTunes, Spotify, Amazon music, YouTube, or other pod catchers. And don't forget to give us a review. We'll see you next time.