🎧 Leora Honeyman: Emergent Objects Tim Saunders

Appears in the March 2025 issue of Ceramics Monthly.

The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.

Preparation is the key to success.

Research and Technology

Embedding technology into her practice, ceramic artist Leora Honeyman develops an idea in virtual space before starting the physical material processes, sometimes computer aided, and ends with hand-finishing techniques. “Much of the early stages of my work are designed on a computer,” reveals Honeyman, in stark contrast to traditional potters. She can be on her machine for a day at a time. “That is a different type of fun, but I am happier if I’m hands-on making with clay so I will try to do some of that every day, regardless. I don’t use a wheel. I can’t do it. People have been trying to teach me since I was small. It actually deterred me from ceramics, until I realized I didn’t have to. I thought I had to be a thrower to be a proper potter. I embrace the language of imperfection in materiality, but if I’m seeking perfection, I will lathe or CNC mill a form and make a mold from that. Depending on the vision for the piece, I either make a press or a casting mold.”

Mistakes can still happen during the making, though, and when they do, Honeyman will take a break, “maybe a walk and then carry on” unless it’s at the end of the day, “then I won’t do anymore.” “I try to take a lunch break because I’m prone to overworking,” says Honeyman, who holds a master’s degree in ceramics and glass from the Royal College of Art and an interior architecture degree from the University of Brighton. “If I’m in a flow or working to a deadline I work long hours, but I’ll pause when my son comes home. I might go back and do a bit more after that.” 

As a research-based maker, she uses her “fluency in a range of craft practices to create objects and bodies of associated research.” Her aim is to build an understanding of “otherness to this diverse world through the combined intra-cultural uses of material, pattern, use, and form.” 

Opportunities and Exploration 

Through Gallery FUMI she has shown in the US at Design Miami, FOG Design+Art Fair, and FUMI LA. Her work has been exhibited at the Design Museum and was selected for influential design journalist and curator Corinne Julius’ “Formed with Future Heritage” at Design Centre Chelsea Harbour in 2022. 

It is progressing ideas with her fluxed and porous bodies that are Honeyman’s current predilection. She’s considering how it might work for large applications in relation to digitally created form work, which will emerge over the next twelve to eighteen months. “I’m also continuing with in-glaze luster research and hoping to get some good results. It’s a particularly fickle thing. The piece I exhibited in autumn 2023 as the outcome of a British Ceramics residency was the result of several exciting processes and it left me with lots of questions, so I’ll be looking at what that raised as well.” In 2021, she was one of three artists, alongside Dorcas Casey and Nico Conti, to win “Fresh Talent” during the British Ceramics Biennial. They were each awarded residencies. 

All sorts of clays are used for different purposes and she frequently makes her own bodies. “It really depends on what I’m hoping to achieve with the concept or the purpose. Sometimes the material is the concept, so in that case, I’ll be considering how the processes, for instance, heatwork and the making method will nuance the outcome.” 

Her favorite things to make are tests. “I love the fun and intuitive explorations of making test materials and glazes. It’s easier to adapt glazes if you know the ingredients and proportions. But sometimes I’ll use a commercial glaze if I need something predictable or I’m designing something that I hope might go into general production. I love the fragmentary aesthetic of tests.” 

A typical day starts after breakfast with a walk in the fields around her home. “I then take a cup of tea and go to the studio where I do a bit of cleaning, which is a way to remember whatever it was I was doing the day before. I like to start my work by playing a bit before I get onto the project I’m working on.” Honeyman sets up a camera to record the work so that if she goes off plan she can easily recall what she did and repeat any spontaneous successes. “If I’m working toward a show, the making schedule will be pretty tight, but if I’m not, then I’ll be exploring in a more fluid, playful way.” If an assistant is helping, they will start work at lunchtime because Honeyman prefers the early part of the day to be solitary. 

In 2020, Honeyman received a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) award. QEST offers scholarships of up to $21,909 (£18,000) for the training and education of talented craftspeople. Over the last thirty years, QEST has awarded over $5.5m (£4.5m) to more than 550 individuals working in 130 different disciplines. 

Influence and Inspiration 

“I feel very lucky to be able to spend so much of my time working, making and creating, and doing what I love. The medium of ceramics has been very generous to me,” admits Honeyman, who was born in Zimbabwe and comes from a creative family. “My parents both exhibited regularly and were both collected widely including by the then Rhodesian National Gallery. Mum was a ceramic and textile artist and it’s her and my aunt that most influenced my media, but dad, a painter and draughtsman, was a huge inspiration—both in the way he cherished nature and the physical world, the phenomena of seeing and also in his absolute sense of possibility.” 

From a young age Honeyman was a maker. “I’ve made my living working across media as an artist, designer, and maker throughout my adult life, first making club environments and then training as an architect to scale up and take a more hands-off approach.” 

When she had her son, Honeyman returned to making smaller works in the time that was allowed alongside raising him. “In 2017 ceramics became suddenly very much my medium. I visited my mum’s side of the family in South Africa and tried to reconnect with my roots.” 

Returning to the UK, she began making coil pots. “They were a mixture of a memory of seeing these pots on women’s heads and on the sides of the road when I was a kid and a sort of intuitive impulse act of thinking through making. I was also trying to support my son’s interest in ceramics. They became more and more visceral and materially led. People were interested and wanted to buy them. While I was doing this, I learned that the Zulu pots had a special significance as portals to ancestors, which added a conceptual dimension to the process.” 

Her trusty old 40–liter firebox helps Honeyman with her experimental “and potentially kiln-ruiningly disastrous work, salt pigments, etc.” Additionally, she has a little test kiln and a good-sized front loader. “I’m looking to add to this with a much bigger one for the large-scale works. I have a new-to-me raku kiln, too.” 

Honeyman is considering a couple of residencies to work on large-scale works and is looking for opportunities to pass on her making skills. 

To see more of her work, visit leorahoneyman.co.uk. 

the author British journalist Tim Saunders writes about art and ceramics. When he has time, he enjoys painting and making.