Jane Lowth

October 3, 2020May 30, 2023

Making Photographs

Since July 2019, I have been learning to take better photographs with Emma Davies‘ wonderful free online course A Year With My Camera. During August, I took part in the annual summer challenge, ’30 days of composition’, and made new photographs of my pottery and sculpture. Each day there is a new prompt, relating to an element or technique of composition. These photographs feature old, well loved pots and sculpture, as well as some brand new work.

UPDATE: I still like looking back on these photographs, but to see what I’m doing now, check out The Pottery Hut, our new teaching studio in Bexleyheath, Jane Lowth, May 2023

The Pottery Hut

1. View point. Looking up at the willow tree above my studio.

2. Framed. An almost forgotten pot, had a moment of adventure.

3. Negative space. I made this pot over twenty years ago; the bubbly texture was a happy and exciting early accident.

4. Diagonals. The stoppers on these bottles are more about the pleasing sound they make, than any possible function. The willow tree lost the branch that these leaves hung from, in dramatic fashion soon after this was taken.

5. Rule of thirds. This wine goblet is decorated with a grape motive. It gave my niece, ordained into the Church of England in 2019, the idea of asking me to design a chalice and paten, for her to conduct communion on the go. What a fun project this was; I lined a basket with fabric to put the kit together. See below.

6. Leading lines. I do enjoy splashing glaze on pots. Here, gifts from one of our parakeets also lead the eye to the main event.

7. Symmetry. A recent pot, with over the top stopper, sitting on its garden thrown. I desaturated the colours other than blue, to separate it visually from the complex background.

8. Fill the frame. I made these on a course with studio potter *legend* Clive Bowen at West Dean College in March 2019. Fun with slip.

9. Odd numbers. This bright green algae on the fence outside my studio made the perfect backdrop for five little bottles in a row. I’ve added some warm shading at the top of the picture to balance the red rust glaze, but I honestly didn’t boost the vibrance of the green! I think these bottles could be useful for oils, for example, although, as always, made mostly for fun.

10. Balance. Not entirely convinced about the compostion of this photograph, but more fun pots form my workshop with Clive Bowen, see picture 8 above.

11. Pattern. This repeating pattern on this vase was made with small lino cut tiles as a demo for my students. The fragile curl of cut out lino came away in one piece, and was just too nice to throw away. So I superglued it to another square of lino, and hence had positive and negative stamps. If I try to repeat this, it may be too fiddly!

12. No foreground. Another project that started as a demo for my students. She is called Teresa, and is 40cm tall.

13. Round. A friend asked me to make a funerary urn for her Mum, Ann, who had been a keen potter herself. The shape, colour and glaze effects all reflect Ann’s own style, and I put her potter’s mark on the base, as well as my own. The family call it, ‘Mum’s Genie Pot.’ An honour and a pleasure to make this special piece.

14. Form or shape. To be honest, form or shape is not a tricky prompt to follow with pottery. So much is about form. On this one, I marked a grid over the pot surface while it was still soft enough to carve, and added a design worked out on paper. So the birds at the widest part are smaller than those at the top and bottom. See below for the making of another similar piece.

15. Texture. March 17th 2020 should have been my pottery students’ end of course exhibition; of course, it was cancelled. The theme they had chosen was Water, and this was my exhibit. The base of the dish was scored, dried with a heat gun and stretched, before being joined to the thrown dish rim. The effect of course mimics a dried river bed, which is also made of clay. Many of the world’s mighty rivers are used so heavily for our growing cities and industry, that they never reach the sea.

16. What’s leaving the frame? This is a stack of bespoke dog bowls that I make for my sister in law and partner’s gorgeous dog boutique in Holt.

17. Creating depth. Looking down into a tall jar; the one that featured on day 10. Going for greatest depth of field. I think the resulting image is more than a little James Bond.

18. Create movement. This is me trying to capture some of the movement of making pots. I unboxed my intervalometer and neutral density filters. I used all the filters at once, and a 3 second shutter speed. Manual focus. Certainly something I’ll play with another day.

19. Perfectly aligned. Here are a pair of penguins; I made many of them a few Christmases ago. They are celebrating our Ruby Wedding anniversary this August, in front of the Ruby coloured plant our marvellous sons gave us.

20. Deliberately discordant. Here is a pile of pots, usually displayed so that you can see the form of each. Here the stripes, craze lines and bubbles of my raku pots jostle with the deep texture of the stoneware form, made after a fantastic week at West Dean with Shozo Michikawa.

21. Square format. I made this rather square pot for my son and his girl’s cottage in the sky. It was coiled, and paddled with a butter pat. My largest initial stamp is square. Big pot, big mark, why ever not!

22. Single focal point. Another square pot. Slab work this time. Made as an enclosed cube before scribing round with a needle tool to form the lid.

23. This tiny slab box is probably large enough to store a small bead, or perhaps a precious milk tooth? Just for fun really; pleased with the photograph.

24. Complimentary colour. Indigo and apricots. One of many bowls I’ve made in this blue glaze, they tend to be popular.

25. Mono. This was my first portrait head. He is called Alistair, and was a model at a wonderful weekend workshop at West Dean with Jon Edgar. He lives in the garden now, seems happy enough; in distant thought.

26. Abstract. This is the large slip decorated jar featured already. Detail of my brushwork has been edited in Lightroom. I used what still seems to me like a magic painting box: split toning with the tone curve.

27. Repetition. A few years ago I made over one hundred of these little cups to raise money for the excellent Asha charity on their 25th anniversary. In 2015 I was able to visit some of the health and education projects run by Asha in some of the slums in Delhi. Their work continues with these people, during the Covid crisis, which, of course, disproportionately affects the poor.

28. S-curve. This is my sculpture of a heron, borrowing the viewpoint from day one. Sadly he won’t spy any fish under our willow tree. I do admire herons from a distance. Making that dagger like beak, and keeping it intact through drying and firing was a challenge.

29. Eye contact. This is the second portrait head I made with Jon Edgar, see day 25. I can’t remember the model’s name, but she did struggle to stay awake. Not an exciting day for her! Here, under the willow tree, a speck of spider clutter gives her expression a tiny glint. So I can imagine this piece of terracotta is making eye contact.

30. Break the rules. No pottery here, but our twelve year old labrador Harry, smiling from floppy ear to ear after paddling in the sea at Whitstable at the end of August. Overlapping subjects, central in the frame. I tried cropping, but then I lost the curve of the tide, or left Harry looking out of the frame. Not the best composition, after a month of practicing, but it makes me smile.

September 20, 2020September 20, 2020

Lock down summer in the tree house

Five years on from our move, and, like everyone else, we have been at home. For me, that has meant a spring and summer close to the garden birds, and a little more time to make pottery, just for fun.

As the small birds fledged, I was there to capture some photographs, and when that drama was over, I found myself adding birds to my pots. This is something I will pursue some more, when time allows. Who knows what the next year will bring?

November 18, 2016September 20, 2020

New house, New Studio, New kiln, New Pots!

Since my last blog, I have moved house, and moved two Pottery studios! I am now living in central Sidcup, and teaching at The Learning Centre, Brampton Road, Bexleyheath.

At home I have made a studio in a shed under a massive willow tree.

My poor old kiln just about survived the journey, but I am blessed to have a brand new one! For 18 years I had to monitor my ancient old faithful, and turn it up, and off, by hand, I can now programme my new Rhode top loader, and it does all the work for me. It is like the difference between making cheese on toast under a grill, and programming a microwave ready meal. I learned a lot by firing from first principles for so long; plotting graphs and staying up late, but I’m happy to sell out to my digital controller now!

Since setting up, I’ve taken my squashed, ‘Hold me’ mugs, and made them bigger, and I’ve also started making large mugs with pockets. The original idea was to use them for a biscuit, but I’ve also had people buying them to pop your teabag in after brewing.

February 13, 2015February 14, 2015

Hold me mugs!

The idea for these new mugs came as a commission for a, ‘comfort mug’ from Deborah, who manages Sidcup & Co in Sidcup High street, where my pots are for sale. She wanted a mug that would fit comfortably into her hand, so we had to work out how to make one.