I was born in South Wales in 1954…I will be 57 until November.

By the time I was 16, I had decided not to pursue an academic career, not that this was an option with only 4 very poor 'O' level passes to show for my schooling. Instead I became something of a feral teenager, working in a succession of potteries, earning little but learning the potter's trade.

In 1974, I got a place on the Harrow School of Art pottery course and left my mark on that esteemed institution by carelessly blowing one of its gas kilns to smithereens. In 1976 I left college and went to work at Clive Bowen's Shebbear pottery where I helped him build his kiln. Whilst working at Shebbear, I met Charmian Harris who was also working there at that time; we married the following year and started our own pottery business with a wood-fired kiln in Devon. Charmian had always made jewellery as well as pots and now, with two young children to look after, she found it easier to concentrate on jewellery. For over 30 years, I made pots and Charmian made jewellery. I had a moderate degree of success but it was Charmian's jewellery business that really kept us afloat.

I have always helped out occasionally with the jewellery, taking photos, running the website and doing the occasional bit of metalwork. Several years ago, we bought some casting equipment from a retired dentist. Designed for making gold teeth, I soon had it in use for casting jewellery and found that I was enjoying the process of 'lost-wax casting'. In some ways it is not unlike pottery; wax, like clay, is a soft, malleable material which is transformed into a hard, durable one by a process of fire and heat, a process that is fraught with uncertainties. When Charmian became ill with a heart arrhythmia I started to help her out on a full-time basis and mothballed the pottery.

At the end of 2009 we came to a crossroads. Charmian had decided to take a whole year away from work and did not book any of her usual selling events. I had to decide which way to go, either start a jewellery business of my own or re-activate the pottery. I chose to do jewellery which I now realise was a mistake. I enjoy making jewellery, working with wax, metal and stone; solving problems using my mechanical and technical skills and designing pieces around beautiful and often unusual stones. But I have realised that being happy in the workshop is only a small part of the story. I found myself having to deal with the astonishingly high price of gold and, as I was a new maker, I was starting from scratch when it came to applying for selling events and building a client base. Charmian and I have now decided to re-think the jewellery business so that, although I will be involved in her business again, it will not be full-time. With the jewellery work much reduced I will be able to return to making pottery.

When I first made pots as a teenager, I thought of myself as a tradesman. Perhaps this was a reaction to the academic pressures of my schooling, but I was tackling the difficult technical skills needed to produce good functional pottery in sufficient quantity to sell cheaply whilst maintaining a good standard of design. I read Leach and Cardew until I could practically recite their books from memory. I wanted nothing more than to be a very good maker of functional pottery, it seemed like an honourable goal. But by the time I started on the Harrow pottery course, with Mick Casson having just left, we were being encouraged to think of ourselves as artists, a hitherto alien concept. Us potters, some of whom loved working with clay and some of whom loved to build a kiln and get it really hot, were busy shoe-horning ourselves into a new identity. But we weren't artists! Gone was the ideal of making lots of good pots and selling them cheaply, Thatcher was on the throne and we were all being encouraged to get rich. I have now had some time away from pottery and can look back on those years with perspective; it isn't a pretty sight. I managed to carve out a niche for myself where I could command fairly high prices for my work so long as it was eccentric enough, but it didn't feel right. Then I tried to simplify the work but my sales dried up, at least at the prices that I was asking. The decision to concentrate on jewellery making came in no small part from this situation.

Now that I am back in business as a potter, I would like to go back to my roots, to the work that excited and inspired me in the first place. Forget the art, my real expertise is in thrown pottery, made with a relaxed quality that can only come from having been made in large numbers. I want to make pots that everyone can enjoy because they are well made, they fit the hand, the fingers and the lips. They pour well, you can put them in the dishwasher or microwave…you can break them…they will have cost you so little that you can easily replace them! They have to look good too, and so they will. I am going to be making porcelain, it has a clean, modern look but beneath that almost industrial perfection lies a funky rebelliousness! As the pots reach their maturing temperature in the kiln, they soften with the heat and warp unexpectedly, blurring any sharp lines; the glaze runs into crevices where it pools and crazes beautifully. I am using some bright colour, a bit of orange and red here and there. As an avid consumer of espresso, I love the little, thick cups that you find in European cafes with their printed logos…Illy, Lavazza, Segafredo, I want to make pots a little like that, only hand-made.

A few years ago Ceramic Review published an article about me entitled 'The Arcanist'. If you would like to read it, Click here.

All work and no play…?
Since 1984, Charmian and I have lived in a big old Georgian town-house in Torrington, North Devon. When we bought it, it had every conceivable building defect, wood-boring beetles, fungi and leaks (mmm…sounds tasty). But it also had wood-panelled walls, high ceilings, sash windows, shutters…everything that is lovely about buildings of that period. It has been our family home, party venue and building project for over 25 years. We have a son and a daughter, Pete and Meriel…and a cat, Mr Zippy! Pete lives in Bristol and does something to do with computers. He taught me practically everything I know about computers and, as he hasn't taught me anything for the last decade or so, I am getting a little out-of-date. Meriel lives with Louis, her 8-year-old son, in Bude. She is a yoga teacher, a jewellery maker and, when conditions and commitments permit, a keen surfer.

I tinker around with a lot of non-work projects. I have had a big, greasy old motorbike (Triumph Thunderbird) since the age of 18…it is less greasy now since I have rebuilt it (several times!) but it usually demands my attention, during the summer months in particular. Sometimes I pack some clothes, tent, hammock and a sleeping bag and head off to southern Europe on my pushbike for a couple of months. I have done quite a few of these trips, usually covering between 2000 to 3000 miles on what was, to begin with, a rickety, rusty old 1949 Raleigh Roadster. My present bike is no feat of modern technology either…but I can fix it with basic tools and parts which is, to me, more important. I love these trips, living out of doors in all weathers, sleeping rough and rising early, pedalling through mountainous country or vast hot plains on tiny roads.

Several years ago I nearly burned the house down as a result of my dodgy DIY wiring! I was sleeping alone in the house and lucky to escape with my life, saved by the only smoke alarm hard-wired into the mains, all the other battery powered alarms having had their batteries removed! All the furniture had to be moved out for re-decorating and we took the opportunity to ditch our old honky-tonk piano and replace it with a new Yamaha baby-grand. I don't know why, I had taken lessons whilst our children were learning but I hadn't played for years at this point. I became obsessed by this fabulous instrument and for several years I would play it whenever the opportunity arose, I play less now but I still love to play Bach, Ravel and Debussey, amongst others. I never had much money as a youth so never bought records, but I loved music and I was handy with a soldering iron so I could usually coax a dumped valve radio into life. Listening to the radio has been a lifetime habit, even my bootlegged tapes of albums ended up having John Peel programmes recorded over them. By the time he died, I had several cardboard boxes of these tapes! Today I am more or less permanently tuned in to BBC 6music.

When our children were small we used to go roller-skating in a sports hall on rainy Saturday afternoons. Hordes of kids and the occasional wobbly adult swirling around to 1980s pop from a crackly tape player. We took our grandson some 25 years later to find that nothing had changed at all, not even the choice of music! I found that I could still just about stay upright and, the following week, bought a pair of rollerblades from (appropriately) the Air Ambulance charity shop. Thus began my latest obsession! A couple of years (and some colourful injuries) later, now riding some nice Seba slalom skates, I like nothing better than to skate my ass off whenever I can! Louis and I go to a skate park when I babysit for him on Tuesday evenings whilst his mum teaches yoga. He gets me to try things that I know are going to hurt, but without him I would never have the bottle to try them.

Here are some links…
Charmian Harris Jewellery: www.charmianharris.co.uk
Meriel Chapman Yoga: www.merielchapman.co.uk
BBC 6music: www.bbc.co.uk/6music
London skaters: www.londonskaters.com
Good jewellery blog: 18kt.wordpress.com
Craft and Design Magazine: www.craftanddesign.net