Fiona Kelly
POTTERY
I have been potting for more than 30 years. I love pots, to take a ball of clay and tranform it on the wheel and by firing into a fully functional item for the table gives me immense pleasure. I do not feel my work is really finished until it is being used, and at home my pots go into the dishwasher and are used in the oven and microwave.
I started potting at evening classes - my first tutor being Russell Coates. I then completed a two year part time course at Goldsmiths' College (1981-3) where I spent most of the second year throwing pots on the wheel, with tutor Lisa Hammond.
Moving to Bournemouth, the births of four daughters and running businesses in tourism and construction took up most of the next twenty years, but now I have more time to give to clay. My work is mainly functional, made of stoneware clay and decorated with coloured slips and glazes which I mix myself. The pots are twice fired in an electric kiln.
I sell widely throughout Dorset and Hampshire at craft fairs and with the Dorset Pottery Group and the Southern Ceramic Group. I also have work in galleries in Wareham - the Acanthus Gallery and the Creative Gallery - at the Place Mill Gallery in Christchurch and the Strawberry Fish Gallery in Hartley Wintney.
Contact Fiona Kelly