Joanna Bird's current show
Left, work by Carina Ciscato, right, work by John Maltby
Joanna Bird’s autumn ceramics show, Hands with Heart, is on at her Chiswick gallery from 4 – 12 November
Bird has chosen to focus on nine ceramists out of the 40 or so she represents. They’re a mix of generations and genres with functional ceramics exhibited alongside sculptural and relative newcomers such as Carina Ciscato and Helen Beard showing alongside old hands such as John Maltby and William Plumptre. (The other potters included are Pippin Drysdale, Rupert Spira and Miranda Thomas.) Bird has also thrown a few 20th-century classics, including Lucie Rie and William Marshall, into the mix in a bid to show a range of studio ceramics.
But although it’s quite a diverse group as far as style and technique go, all the work on show shares a certain aesthetic – they’re subtle, well-mannered ceramics, restrained both in terms of colour and form and all share an intrinsic quality. ‘Joanna trained as a potter and worked under Michael Cardew for some time so she really knows what good quality is in pottery and it’s well-made, hand-made pieces that she’s really interested in,’ says her assistant Camilla Webb-Carter. The show’s title, Hands with Heart, neatly emphasises this point combining as it does the idea of the hand-made with the heartfelt passion of the committed potter.
http://www.joannabirdpottery.com
