Pottery
Energy prices are shattering Britain’s remaining potteries
The ceramics industry of Stoke-on-Trent is one of the great survivors of the Victorian era. At its height, some 70,000…
Pot head
Richard Batterham died last September at the age of 85. He had worked in his pottery in the village of…
Eternity in an hour
Growing up on a farm outside Lima, I was aware that indigenous Peruvians did not understand time in the same…
Why it’s bad for potters to think of themselves as artists
A friend of mine once owned a vase by the potter Hans Coper — until, that is, her teenage son…
Spying and potting
The main problem with being a TV critic, I’ve noticed over the years, is that you have to watch so…
Edmund de Waal’s diary: Selling nothing, and why writers need ping-pong
On the top landing of the Royal Academy is the Sackler Sculpture Corridor, a long stony shelf of torsos of…
A terrible beauty
A.S. Byatt on the dark, deadly secrets lurking beneath a calm, white surface
Diary
‘Devon, Devon, Devon/ Where it rains six days out of seven.’ Nothing beats a British seaside holiday. And north Devon…
This is England
At the Turner Prize dinner of 2003, as the winner, Grayson Perry, took a photo call with his family wearing…
The poetry of pottery
For Edmund de Waal a ceramic pot has a ‘real life’ that goes beyond functionalism.This handsome book (designed by Atelier…
Diary
ONE OF THE MINOR sociological treats of being appointed shadow education secretary is a frontbench view of David Cameron’s crimson…
