Fresh from the kiln – Andrew Hazelden’s Pottery Summer Collection revealed
THIS year Andrew Hazelden’s Pottery Summer Show at Hewins Wood, Bradfield, promises a new batch fresh out of the kiln of functional domestic ware, affordable mugs and jugs to pasta bowls to elevate your suppers.
Alongside, visitors will be able to see recent commissioned pieces and impressive serving ware. Exhibiting with Andrew will be Oxford-based painter Jane Lees with still life and landscapes.
It’s a busy studio and when Stanford Dingley artist Jane Body recently visited the workshop lots of tiles were being decorated for a commission for a bathroom and still orders were coming in for his red, white and blue coronation plates , a limited edition nearly coming to the limit of 100.
“Among the new coffee pots just lifted from the potter’s wheel, the small flower vases caught my eye,” says Jane. “Just made, the brown clay drying before the first firing to make it that familiar terracotta colour.
“One was finished and made the simple sweet peas from the garden look just beautiful… three in a row I pondered, would make an elegant summer table scape along a lunch table.
“Further on in the workshop on the wooden shelves were salad bowls and bigger jugs with the white layer , a glaze, a sort of ‘undercoat’, waiting their turn before the final painted decoration goes on. Deftly applied by paint brush it’s quite a process.
“You can see all the stages and the tools with glazes in jars on shelves above an apothecary of pigments stored in glass jars ..
“In among pots drying on the workshop shelves are small pieces of students work and one much larger, a student’s lampshade base from his Saturday and Wednesday classes.
“In the showroom adjourning you will be able see all the finished pieces on display, with of course the ‘ceremonial’ iridescent lustreware, that he has gained a reputation for. He is an expert in this field.
“It shimmers as it catches the light . Referred to as ceremonial, as it was explained to me, it’s decorative and used occasionally – ‘Sunday best’ – or collectors pieces .
Recently, the V&A Museum came to visit the studio pottery to fire their workshop pots in his kiln in a lustre ware collaboration project with Iranian potter Abbas Akbari.
“I stayed on to listen to a summer evening talk with a group of visitors.
“Everyone watched and asked questions as Andrew pulled the clay upwards with his hands to reveal the form, but all were silent and concentrated at watching the calligraphic brush decoration applied with natural oxides and in moments there was the pot, all dressed. Just one more firing, before it moves from workshop to showroom and from there its new home.
“Some of those small flower vases when they are ready may have to come home with me.”
Hewins Wood Pottery show runs from July 8 to 22, open 1pm-5pm, closed Sundays.
Instagram @andrew_hazelden_potter
Website www.andrewhazelden.co.uk
Andrew studied ceramics at the Epsom School of Art and Design, and has worked with renowned ceramicists Mary Wondrausch and Alan Caiger-Smith. He learned the technique of tin glaze earthenware and reduction fired lustre at the Aldermaston Pottery in Berkshire which he joined in 1984
Exhibiting with Andrew, painter Jane Lees’ still life and landscapes complement his ceramics perfectly. A retired priest who was at St Lukes, Oxford, for 30 years, a church with a strong commitment to social justice and ministry to creative arts, Jane is now part-time chaplin at Oxford care home Brookfields, running creative workshop for residents as well as designing large scale mural there .
