Menu

  • Home
  • Gallery
  • Stories
  • What's on
  • Collect art fair
  • Directory
    • Overview
    • Supporting craft businesses
    • Opportunities
    • Join the directory
    • Craft business resources
    • Crafting Business programme for makers
    • Brexit advice
    • Overview
    • How we work
    • Get making
    • Craft careers
    • Education
    • Craft education pledge
    • Participation
    • Young Craft Citizens
  • Crafts magazine
    • Overview
    • About the collections
    • How to hire and borrow
    • Exhibitions
    • Overview
    • Our work
    • Our team
    • Governance
    • Working here
    • History
    • Contact us
    • Research and policy
    • Diversity and inclusion
    • Craft UK
    • Press
    • Overview
    • Appeals and projects
    • Patrons
    • A gift in your will
    • Corporate partnerships
    • Our supporters and partners

Quick Links

  • Opportunities
Home
Login
Crafts CouncilStories

Surprising celebrities with a passion for pottery


ByCrafts magazine

18 June 2020

Famous figures who play with clay


Crafts magazine

18 June 2020

  • Ceramics

  • Photo: Pxfuel

You’re never too famous to pot, it seems. With ceramics experiencing a huge surge in popularity, A-listers are getting on the act, building their own pottery studios in their mega mansions and waxing lyrical about the meditative act of throwing to their Instagram followers. One celebrity-ceramicist even has a work in the V&A. Read on for our cast of famous figures – from actors to a supermodel and a tennis star – going potty for pottery.

View this post on Instagram

I made this little black pot.

A post shared by Seth (@sethrogen) on Jan 24, 2020 at 6:14pm PST

Seth Rogan

The Canadian actor and pothead – pun intended – is an avid convert to clay, regularly sharing his latest ashtrays and vases on Instagram. ‘There's something that's so therapeutic about it,’ Rogan told GQ. ‘It's like yoga, but if you got a thing at the end.’


Johnny Vegas as guest judge on The Great Pottery Throw Down. Photo courtesy Love Productions.jpg

Johnny Vegas

The comedian studied ceramics at university, and even has a wobbly work in the V&A – a teapot made live on stage in only 60 seconds. He told the BBC: ‘When I'm not trying to act or ranting at people on stage, I like to pot. For somebody that was struggling at school it literally saved me. It gave me a real belief in my ideas.’

Brad Pitt

The American A-lister loves ceramics so much, he even built a Pittery – sorry, a pottery – for his LA mansion, which Leonardo DiCaprio regularly visits for sculpting sessions. So far they’ve kept their pieces private, but we’re looking forward to glimpsing Pitt’s pots…


Tom Franco at the exhibition Pipe Brothers: Tom and James Franco at the ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center. Photo: courtesy of the artist/the ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center

James Franco

The US actor collaborated with his brother, artist Tom Franco (above), to create huge ceramic sculptures from sewage pipes (no toilet humour, please). Measuring over seven feet tall, each was extruded then carved and glazed by the brothers.

View this post on Instagram

GEORGE E. OHR

A post shared by Josh O'Connor (@joshographee) on Nov 20, 2019 at 3:05am PST

Josh O’Connor

British actor Josh O’Connor is our ‘one to watch’. A friendship with LOEWE’s craft-obsessed creative director Jonathan Anderson sparked O’Connor’s love of clay – he now plans to start potting, while his Instagram is crammed with ceramic greats such as Lucie Rie.

View this post on Instagram

I’m really getting into pottery

A post shared by Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) on Feb 15, 2019 at 6:19am PST

It's not just actors who are getting their hands dirty. From tennis player Serena Williams to model Emily Ratajkowski, It-girls are busy swapping their handbags for hand-building. Vogue magazine even proclaimed ‘Pottery is the new yoga!’ – thanks to its mindfulness benefits that are backed up by science. When actor Shia LaBeouf confessed to feeling ‘deeply dissatisfied with life’, Kristen Stewart’s advice was: ‘Take a pottery class.’ Celebrity or not, we think it’s not a bad idea.


Share

  • Facebook 
  • Twitter 
  • Whatsapp 
  • Email 
  • Pinterest 
  • ...

Read more

  • Stories

    Fashion designer Jonathan Anderson on his passion for ceramics

    • Profile
    • Crafts magazine
  • Stories

    Going potty for pottery

    • Ceramics
    • Craft and wellbeing
  • Stories

    7 easy ways to get crafting to boost your mental health

    • Craft and wellbeing

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

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

Reg. charity no. 280956

  • Our work
  • Our team
  • Privacy policy