Stephanie Hart

Stephanie’s father was, amongst other things, an eccentric Hungarian potter - and years after his passing, she felt drawn to the clay. Stephanie feels a total creative immersion when she works with clay – it’s something kind of cellular.

Instinctively building big and fast – she then shapes and fashions slowly. She feels a slightly embarrassing primal connection with the clay and finds her works often seem to retain a feeling of nature about them.

Preferring to hand build and rarely beginning a piece with a firm vision she is led by the pot as it forms, often taking a different tangent depending on the texture or dryness of the clay and the way it sits or fits with what was formed just before. She likes to blend clays and experiment with oxides and glazes – sometimes pouring and tipping quickly, following a line or a curve. The result is quickly satisfying. She will take to the brush or scraper to add some line-work or etch away a section or fossick for some foliage to imprint in the clay.

Stephanie feels particularly satisfied when something emerges from the kiln having been further battered by the elements: giving a feeling of burnt wood, being reminiscent of a large bird’s egg or the glaze looks like reeds or tentacles.