Menu

  • Home
  • Stories
  • Gallery
  • Crafts magazine
  • What's on
  • Directory
    • Overview
    • Supporting craft businesses
    • Join the directory
    • Opportunities
    • Craft business resources
    • Craft business booster sessions
    • Crafting Business programme for makers
    • Overview
    • Make First
    • Education
    • Families
    • Participation
    • Craft learning resources
    • Craft careers
    • Craft School: Yinka’s Challenge
    • Young Craft Citizens
    • Overview
    • About the collections
    • How to hire and borrow
    • Exhibitions
    • Curatorial fellowship
  • Collect art fair
    • Overview
    • Our work
    • Our team
    • Governance
    • History
    • Research and policy
    • Diversity and inclusion
    • Current vacancies
    • Contact us
    • Craft UK
    • Press
    • Overview
    • Appeals and projects
    • Patrons
    • A gift in your will
    • Corporate partnerships
    • Our supporters and partners

Quick Links

  • Subscribe
  • Opportunities
  • Crafts Council at 50
Home
Login
Crafts CouncilDirectoryLiz Mathews at Potters' Yard

Waterfalls and harvests

A series of banners and wall-hangings, constructed with elements of clay, driftwood and other found materials, inspired by writing about the natural world. The words often draw together different elements to make a coherent whole, like pages in a book, or bricks in a wall, or tesserae in a mosaic. I like to push the clay to its limits while retaining its functional qualities, exploring a material expression of the words, making poetry physical.

Liz Mathews at Potters' Yard

London, England


Peace and Love banners, Liz Mathews

Two banners inspired by simple profound lyrics: the first setting a traditional Celtic blessing, the second: 'All you need is love'. Made with strips of clay, lettered, glazed and high-fired, then finished with a 9ct gold lustre in a third firing, strung together with silk threads and suspended from a copper pipe. The banners chime musically when moved gently, like windchimes.


River-tree banner, Liz Mathews

Fragments of stoneware and river driftwood and pierced stone beads are bound together with green silk threads; the words are from a poem by Jeremy Hooker: 'Lines and nets of grass / hang tangled in branches, / and the river is itself a tree / growing along the ground / bark-ridged, / feeding with millions of leaves'


Waterfall, Liz Mathews

Wall hanging made from eight stoneware panels suspended from copper pipes and cup-hooks, with words from Valentine Ackland's poem 'Everywhere is the pattern of water', set to flow down the panels like leaves floating downstream. This photo shows Waterfall on exhibition at the National Poetry Library in London's Southbank Centre.


Harvest banner, Liz Mathews

Off-cut strips of waste clay from another work (Stele, an improvised grave marker), suspended from a river-carved driftwood beam with sash-cord. The words are from a poem by Edith Sitwell, and this photo was taken while the banner was on exhibition in the National Poetry Library.


Delight banner, Liz Mathews

Off-cut scraps of stoneware hung from copper pipe with silk cord, backed with painted scraps from artist's book covers. Words from a poem by Sylvia Townsend Warner.


The thing itself, Liz Mathews

A banner made from strips torn from a single slab of stoneware clay, Thames driftwood, embroidery silks and string. The text is from Virginia Woolf's 'The Waves'.

Waterfalls and harvests

A series of banners and wall-hangings, constructed with elements of clay, driftwood and other found materials, inspired by writing about the natural world. The words often draw together different elements to make a coherent whole, like pages in a book, or bricks in a wall, or tesserae in a mosaic. I like to push the clay to its limits while retaining its functional qualities, exploring a material expression of the words, making poetry physical.

Liz Mathews at Potters' Yard

London, England


Peace and Love banners, Liz Mathews

Two banners inspired by simple profound lyrics: the first setting a traditional Celtic blessing, the second: 'All you need is love'. Made with strips of clay, lettered, glazed and high-fired, then finished with a 9ct gold lustre in a third firing, strung together with silk threads and suspended from a copper pipe. The banners chime musically when moved gently, like windchimes.


Harvest banner, Liz Mathews

Off-cut strips of waste clay from another work (Stele, an improvised grave marker), suspended from a river-carved driftwood beam with sash-cord. The words are from a poem by Edith Sitwell, and this photo was taken while the banner was on exhibition in the National Poetry Library.


River-tree banner, Liz Mathews

Fragments of stoneware and river driftwood and pierced stone beads are bound together with green silk threads; the words are from a poem by Jeremy Hooker: 'Lines and nets of grass / hang tangled in branches, / and the river is itself a tree / growing along the ground / bark-ridged, / feeding with millions of leaves'


Delight banner, Liz Mathews

Off-cut scraps of stoneware hung from copper pipe with silk cord, backed with painted scraps from artist's book covers. Words from a poem by Sylvia Townsend Warner.


Waterfall, Liz Mathews

Wall hanging made from eight stoneware panels suspended from copper pipes and cup-hooks, with words from Valentine Ackland's poem 'Everywhere is the pattern of water', set to flow down the panels like leaves floating downstream. This photo shows Waterfall on exhibition at the National Poetry Library in London's Southbank Centre.


The thing itself, Liz Mathews

A banner made from strips torn from a single slab of stoneware clay, Thames driftwood, embroidery silks and string. The text is from Virginia Woolf's 'The Waves'.

More from Liz Mathews at Potters' Yard

  • Project

    Meadow pots

  • Project

    Vessels containing volumes

  • Project

    Beloved houses (house portraits in clay)

Stay informed and inspired

Select an option to receive a newsletter

Follow us

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Pinterest

Crafts Council
44a Pentonville Road
London N1 9BY

hello@craftscouncil.org.uk
+44 (0)20 7806 2500

Reg. charity no. 280956

  • Our work
  • Our team
  • Privacy policy