The Umbrella Artists...

My name is Phil Arthur and I trained at Farnham School of Art and Epsom College of Art and Design in the years 1970 to 1974 studying vocational ceramics. After 4 years of working in my own pottery and 1 year with potter Mary Wondrausch  I left ceramics to work as a joiner for 23 years. Since 2003 I have returned to pottery, principally as a teacher in adult education and, more recently, to begin again to do my own work. I have also enjoyed teaching classes in my local village hall. Having been a production wheel thrower, making functional domestic ware, I have become increasingly inspired by the freedom and limitless scope of the  handbuilding techniques I have been working with in my teaching capacity. I have long been inspired by pre-Columbian pottery, seventeenth century English slipware and, more recently, the sculptural pots of Picasso. I have begun to develop a line of animal form pots using thrown shapes as the basis for altering and constructing. As a potter rather than a sculptor I try to retain the essential essence of a pot, a vessel, whilst being prepared to ditch all other constraints. My principle delight is in strong, pleasing shapes but I am experimenting with decoration that compliments without obliterating the sculptural forms.