OXFORD CERAMICS GALLERY SUTTON TAYLOR

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Sutton Taylor has a box that has travelled from one studio to the next, for the last thirty years.Sealed within it are all the most poisonous chemicals that he had collected on his early transit through the lustre maker’s laboratory.He had vowed not to open it until he was seventy, when he would not be so concerned about the toxic cargo as much as a younger manmay be; now Pandora’s box lies tantalisingly close to temptation. Johannes Faust was the great alchemist of myth, and depictions of hisalembics and retorts are not more mysterious, nor free from temptation, than the world of lustre making.AnAnyone who has attempted the technique will know just how elusive are the results, and what might be the deals one might make toachieve them.Taylor’s is not just an arcane tradition, for he is an empiricist; he walks - he watches the weather, the sea, the landscape.It is the nuances of reflections, the glistening of sun on the water, the depths of a rock pool that inform the surfaces of his vessels.His response to Nature is through the making of pots, which carry both the humble associations of the domestic, as well as the opulenceof the court ceramics. His is a style of making that apparently belongs to a long tradition of lustre-ware, and indeed his work featuressignificantly in the books on the subject, but actually it defies classification. significantly in the books on the subject, but actually it defies classification. He is largely self-taught. There was clearly an early moment in the process that involved the capture of the fleeting seduction of a flashof gold in raku firing, the awareness of the techniques of Persian and Syrian potters and then endless experimentation. It is work that isaware of tradition without being a part of it. For him improvisation is the key to success: there is no firing technique that involves moremoments of danger than lustre firing, so risk-taking becomes a necessary modus vivendi. Firstly the body of the vessel is not just aconconventional clay; Taylor mixes frit (the glassy glaze-like material) into the locally sourced Doble’s clay dug from the clay beds atSt. Agnes.This added flux and silica creates a sintered body, which enhances lustre development, but it also makes the piece more likelyto crack on cooling. Since each piece is fired four to six times, the loss-rate can be significant. The (al)chemical processes take place ina red-hot kiln - it is a closed box. To discover what is happening inside draw-rings’ (made of the same clay body) are removed at intervalsas the lustre develops in the smoky reduction atmosphere; but when the draw-ring shows perfect lustre development then that is too lateto stop the firing and it will to stop the firing and it will over-cook the ingredients and need to be re-fired. For the manufacture of lustre, the chemicals supplied in the twenty-first century are refined and like most contemporary potters he usesthem, but the land furnishes not only the inspiration for the work, but also inspires the glaze, through addition of impure materials,collected on walks through the ancient Cornish countryside. Carrying a rucksack and hammer, after a storm has broken open ancientseams, the geology is revealed - the source of unrefined minerals to be gleaned from the rock faces. Prospecting on the beach canrreveal copper sulphate crystals; a visit to the industrial past provides arsenic-impregnated sludge from old mine workings.These are traces that would have guided Bronze Age smiths and traders to mineral deposits of copper, tin, alluvial gold, and indeeduranium. They deliver an unpredictable range of colour, that takes the audience back to ancient times, through the medieval ‘mysteries’of the craft guilds and the discoveries of the Middle-Eastern potters, described by Piccolpasso.Thus the work takes us into a world of seduction and beauty, that also returns us to a rare contact with pre-history, a brush with a worldwhewhere magic and transmutation were regarded as commonplace. Sutton Taylor’s ultimate goal was never the Philosopher’s Stone,but the next stage in the individuation is perhaps at hand; maybe now is the time to open the box.

David Jones

SUTTON TAYLOR

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Front cover ST5 above ST18

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Top to bottom ST10, ST3, ST19, vases left to right ST21, ST24, ST22, bottom ST5 Above ST18

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Bernard Leach BL16 Early Slipware Plate, c1923

Top to bottom ST10, ST3, ST19, vases left to right ST21, ST24, ST22, bottom ST5 Above ST18

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Bernard Leach BL02 Tenmoku Vase, c1960s

Solo Exhibitions (since 1994)2013 Oxford Ceramics Gallery, Oxford2010 Hart Gallery. London 2008 Hart Gallery, LondonMillennium Gallery, Cornwall 2007 Summer Exhibition, Hart Gallery, Nottingham Lemon StLemon Street Gallery, Truro 2006 Hart Gallery, London 2005 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 2004 Hart Gallery, London 2001 Hart Gallery, London and South West Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 1999 Leeds University Art Gallery HaHart Gallery, London 1998 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 1997 Runningridge Gallery, Santa Fe, USA 1996 Scarborough Art Gallery and Museum Hart Gallery, London1995 The Scottish Gallery, EdinburghHart Gallery, London19941994 Oxford Gallery, Oxford

Public collections include:Crafts Council, London UKBirmingham Museum and Art Gallery UK (loan from Keatley Trust)Melbourne Museum, AustraliaBrighton and Hove Museums Craft Collection UKLos Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles USAFitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge UKFitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge UKGlasgow Art Gallery UKMusee de Vallauris, FranceVictoria and Albert Museum, London UKAlhambra Museum, Granada, SpainAshmolean Museum, Oxford UK

Published by Oxford Ceramics Ltd. ©Oxford Ceramics Ltd. 2013OxfoOxford Ceramics Gallery, 29 Walton Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX26AAwww.oxfordceramics.com tel: (+44) 01865 512320Introduction ©David Jones 2013Photography & Design ©Michael Harris

SUTTONTAYLOR

Opposite page ST23, this page top to bottom ST7, ST24, ST17

8 OXFORD CERAMICS GALLERY SUTTON TAYLOR