The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
Illustrative Influence
A “continuous loop of inspiration” sums up Lucy Baxendale’s approach to ceramics. She’s also an illustrator and finds that the two feed each other. “I almost always start with drawing, and then try to translate that into
a sculpture, but often the finished sculptures inspire the drawing process, too. It’s nice that pieces will inspire new drawings, which will inspire new sculptures, and vice versa.”
Flicking through her sketchbooks from the last fifteen years, she’ll find a drawing that she hasn’t tried to translate before. “Often something that has unusual shapes or particular detailed sections that I think’ll be interesting
to attempt to make. I then make a rough form from newspaper, cover it with clay and begin to layer on the detail. Sometimes I stain the porcelain before firing giving different tones to the piece.” Each drawing has a story, “Where I was
when I drew it, what inspired the shapes and sometimes words within it.” Preferring to keep their meanings ambiguous, she acknowledges that perceptions are subjective. “What others see in my work really interests me, and often inspires
new thoughts and directions. That’s something I really love about speaking to customers at fairs and exhibitions.” Each little detail, each leaf is individually made and carved by hand. “I think this is important because I’m
trying to get as much movement and energy into each piece. I’ll move around the drawing and around the sculpture to help with this—not focusing on one side or area for too long.”
Sculpting
Her preferred material is Special porcelain, a high-quality white translucent porcelain, excellent for throwing and modeling, and ideal for finely detailed work. “It was one of the first clays I used and I instantly felt comfortable using it,”
she recalls, adding that she has tried different clays just to make sure she’s using the best one. “The finish after high firing is beautiful. I’ve also made a few pieces from Parian, which I think is equally lovely in different
ways.”
After three or four days of building, the sculpture will then be slow dried under plastic for about a month before it is bisque fired. “After firing, I’ll spend another three or four days slowly staining, sponging, and sanding the piece to
get the right levels of contrast. It’s days and months of work, but I won’t know if the form has been successful until it emerges from the high firing…”
“A few factors inspired my current style of making. One was moving to a studio space with its own kiln, meaning I could make much more fragile pieces without the fear of breaking them on my bike! The second was a project that I was working on at
the time with a local illustrator. We were doing a series of creative workshops with a school about the different jobs that used to exist in the area and the ones that still do. I had to make some work that would sit alongside that of the students’
in an exhibition. I made some drawings of carvings on local buildings, mixed in with agricultural tools and folklore that I translated into two small totem-style porcelain sculptures. After finishing, I wondered if this would work with my own
drawings. So I decided to give it a go.” Baxendale was “amazed” when one of the first pieces came out of the kiln in one piece.
Sculptures are her passion. “They’re challenging, and with each one, I’m growing, learning, and becoming a better ceramicist. I love that each one is original and can never be recreated—even if I tried.” There’s so
much to explore in form, structure, and sculpting for Baxendale. “With each sculpture, I’m testing the boundaries of what the porcelain can handle—what shapes it likes and hates. Over time my sculptures have become more elaborate
and daring and each one makes me feel closer to my material. I’m learning to understand porcelain better without the fear of something going wrong.”
While she has made her own glazes for specific projects, generally she keeps her larger work unglazed, “with the occasional touch of gold luster.”
It was only during her degree course at Hereford College of Arts that she started exploring the world of clay. After graduating she returned for a year of ceramics short courses followed by a college residency scheme.
There’s a unique quality about hand building for her. “Everyone can pinch a pot, but they’ll all look different. The little quirks that make our handwriting and drawing styles unique also seem to transfer over into the process. You can
directly influence the material with your fingers, and you’re connected with it throughout the making process. To me, it’s just like drawing in 3D.”
Making a Way of Life
Hers is an idyllic existence. “My greatest achievement is that I’m able to live the life that was always a dream for me, and that I’m still making despite the turbulence of recent years. Costs of raw materials have increased, but my
kiln is fairly economical and the cost of a firing has not gone up by much. My best year to date was 2023.” Success is not something Baxendale takes for granted.
Her commute to work is brief. “My studio is downstairs from where I live. Generally, I’ll respond to any emails or anything that requires brain work first thing and then I’ll put my laptop away and get making.”
She tends to work in small batches, but it is “all consuming and the sole focus” when making a sculpture. “Porcelain dries quickly and so I have a maximum of three or four days to finish a piece before it’s too dry to work on.
Once I start making a sculpture, everything else goes out of the window. I lose track of time and rarely leave my desk. Often I am so involved in the making process I will forget to do the most basic things, like eating. It’s an obsessive process
but I love completely immersing myself in it.”
Hand building more than she throws, Baxendale does, however, love jumping onto her Cowley Double Drive wheel and “into a completely different headspace”.
Two kilns suffice, a Nabertherm 100, which she uses the most, and a 40-liter Cromartie, which was her first kiln “and is great when you need to get test pieces through quickly”.
Her work is available through a handful of stockists, including Red Door Gallery, Edinburgh, and The Craft Centre and Design Gallery, Leeds, where she has had a solo show. She has a full year of events and during 2024 had exhibitions at the Whitehouse
Gallery in Kirkcudbright and Heart Gallery in Hebden Bridge.
Baxendale is working on new sculptural pieces for Ceramic Art London. “One of them even has colored elements to it, so I’m looking forward to seeing how that turns out!”
During her childhood, creativity was encouraged. “I was lucky to be raised in a house where imagination was encouraged as well as self-expression and creativity. We were allowed to get messy, to paint, to make. My mum has always loved stories, and
I was brought up on a diet of J.R.R. Tolkien, Maurice Sendak, and Quentin Blake. I’m one of three, and we all ended up studying creative degrees.”
the author British journalist Tim Saunders writes about art and ceramics. When he has time, he enjoys painting and making.
Monthly Method: Using Slab Coils to Build Sculptural Forms
by Lucy Baxendale
My sculptures are directly inspired by the shapes that present themselves in my drawings. The process begins with a form created in porcelain using free-standing flat coils or by slab building around newspaper. All details are sculpted using predominately
my hands and joined using just water. I carve drawn elements directly into the clay using a needle tool.
Begin by taking a block of clay, then squeezing and rolling it into a coil. Tap the coil flat with your hands or a rolling pin (1). Pick this flat coil up and slam it against the table on each side a couple of times, flattening the edge to make it easier
to join pieces together. This step also helps to spread the clay further in each slab. Compress the clay lightly with a rubber kidney rib. Turn the coil on its side and place it upright in the desired shape (2) on a wareboard. Use your fingers to
compress the first coils to your board, making them a sturdy base for the slabs that will later be placed on top of them.
Join the slabs by resting one on top of the other, and pulling one side of the clay upward while simultaneously pushing the other side downward. I recommend applying pressure across this join with a rubber kidney rib (3) to make sure they are well connected.
It’s important to create interior slabs that will support your form (4), especially if you decide to use porcelain as it tends to slump during the firing process. Allow time for each layer to become leather hard so that it can support weight
on top of it.
Once the base form is established, add details to the lower sections of the sculpture and add as you work upward. I make leaf-shaped details and adornments and use a needle tool to refine and texturize them (5–7) before attaching them to the form
with water (8). Other details like facial features, arms, hands, and florals can be added in the same way (9).
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The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
Illustrative Influence
A “continuous loop of inspiration” sums up Lucy Baxendale’s approach to ceramics. She’s also an illustrator and finds that the two feed each other. “I almost always start with drawing, and then try to translate that into a sculpture, but often the finished sculptures inspire the drawing process, too. It’s nice that pieces will inspire new drawings, which will inspire new sculptures, and vice versa.”
Flicking through her sketchbooks from the last fifteen years, she’ll find a drawing that she hasn’t tried to translate before. “Often something that has unusual shapes or particular detailed sections that I think’ll be interesting to attempt to make. I then make a rough form from newspaper, cover it with clay and begin to layer on the detail. Sometimes I stain the porcelain before firing giving different tones to the piece.” Each drawing has a story, “Where I was when I drew it, what inspired the shapes and sometimes words within it.” Preferring to keep their meanings ambiguous, she acknowledges that perceptions are subjective. “What others see in my work really interests me, and often inspires new thoughts and directions. That’s something I really love about speaking to customers at fairs and exhibitions.” Each little detail, each leaf is individually made and carved by hand. “I think this is important because I’m trying to get as much movement and energy into each piece. I’ll move around the drawing and around the sculpture to help with this—not focusing on one side or area for too long.”
Sculpting
Her preferred material is Special porcelain, a high-quality white translucent porcelain, excellent for throwing and modeling, and ideal for finely detailed work. “It was one of the first clays I used and I instantly felt comfortable using it,” she recalls, adding that she has tried different clays just to make sure she’s using the best one. “The finish after high firing is beautiful. I’ve also made a few pieces from Parian, which I think is equally lovely in different ways.”
After three or four days of building, the sculpture will then be slow dried under plastic for about a month before it is bisque fired. “After firing, I’ll spend another three or four days slowly staining, sponging, and sanding the piece to get the right levels of contrast. It’s days and months of work, but I won’t know if the form has been successful until it emerges from the high firing…”
“A few factors inspired my current style of making. One was moving to a studio space with its own kiln, meaning I could make much more fragile pieces without the fear of breaking them on my bike! The second was a project that I was working on at the time with a local illustrator. We were doing a series of creative workshops with a school about the different jobs that used to exist in the area and the ones that still do. I had to make some work that would sit alongside that of the students’ in an exhibition. I made some drawings of carvings on local buildings, mixed in with agricultural tools and folklore that I translated into two small totem-style porcelain sculptures. After finishing, I wondered if this would work with my own drawings. So I decided to give it a go.” Baxendale was “amazed” when one of the first pieces came out of the kiln in one piece.
Sculptures are her passion. “They’re challenging, and with each one, I’m growing, learning, and becoming a better ceramicist. I love that each one is original and can never be recreated—even if I tried.” There’s so much to explore in form, structure, and sculpting for Baxendale. “With each sculpture, I’m testing the boundaries of what the porcelain can handle—what shapes it likes and hates. Over time my sculptures have become more elaborate and daring and each one makes me feel closer to my material. I’m learning to understand porcelain better without the fear of something going wrong.”
While she has made her own glazes for specific projects, generally she keeps her larger work unglazed, “with the occasional touch of gold luster.”
It was only during her degree course at Hereford College of Arts that she started exploring the world of clay. After graduating she returned for a year of ceramics short courses followed by a college residency scheme.
There’s a unique quality about hand building for her. “Everyone can pinch a pot, but they’ll all look different. The little quirks that make our handwriting and drawing styles unique also seem to transfer over into the process. You can directly influence the material with your fingers, and you’re connected with it throughout the making process. To me, it’s just like drawing in 3D.”
Making a Way of Life
Hers is an idyllic existence. “My greatest achievement is that I’m able to live the life that was always a dream for me, and that I’m still making despite the turbulence of recent years. Costs of raw materials have increased, but my kiln is fairly economical and the cost of a firing has not gone up by much. My best year to date was 2023.” Success is not something Baxendale takes for granted.
Her commute to work is brief. “My studio is downstairs from where I live. Generally, I’ll respond to any emails or anything that requires brain work first thing and then I’ll put my laptop away and get making.”
She tends to work in small batches, but it is “all consuming and the sole focus” when making a sculpture. “Porcelain dries quickly and so I have a maximum of three or four days to finish a piece before it’s too dry to work on. Once I start making a sculpture, everything else goes out of the window. I lose track of time and rarely leave my desk. Often I am so involved in the making process I will forget to do the most basic things, like eating. It’s an obsessive process but I love completely immersing myself in it.”
Hand building more than she throws, Baxendale does, however, love jumping onto her Cowley Double Drive wheel and “into a completely different headspace”.
Two kilns suffice, a Nabertherm 100, which she uses the most, and a 40-liter Cromartie, which was her first kiln “and is great when you need to get test pieces through quickly”.
Her work is available through a handful of stockists, including Red Door Gallery, Edinburgh, and The Craft Centre and Design Gallery, Leeds, where she has had a solo show. She has a full year of events and during 2024 had exhibitions at the Whitehouse Gallery in Kirkcudbright and Heart Gallery in Hebden Bridge.
Baxendale is working on new sculptural pieces for Ceramic Art London. “One of them even has colored elements to it, so I’m looking forward to seeing how that turns out!”
During her childhood, creativity was encouraged. “I was lucky to be raised in a house where imagination was encouraged as well as self-expression and creativity. We were allowed to get messy, to paint, to make. My mum has always loved stories, and I was brought up on a diet of J.R.R. Tolkien, Maurice Sendak, and Quentin Blake. I’m one of three, and we all ended up studying creative degrees.”
To see more work by Lucy Baxendale, visit www.lucybaxendale.com.
the author British journalist Tim Saunders writes about art and ceramics. When he has time, he enjoys painting and making.
Monthly Method: Using Slab Coils to Build Sculptural Forms
by Lucy Baxendale
My sculptures are directly inspired by the shapes that present themselves in my drawings. The process begins with a form created in porcelain using free-standing flat coils or by slab building around newspaper. All details are sculpted using predominately my hands and joined using just water. I carve drawn elements directly into the clay using a needle tool.
Begin by taking a block of clay, then squeezing and rolling it into a coil. Tap the coil flat with your hands or a rolling pin (1). Pick this flat coil up and slam it against the table on each side a couple of times, flattening the edge to make it easier to join pieces together. This step also helps to spread the clay further in each slab. Compress the clay lightly with a rubber kidney rib. Turn the coil on its side and place it upright in the desired shape (2) on a wareboard. Use your fingers to compress the first coils to your board, making them a sturdy base for the slabs that will later be placed on top of them.
Join the slabs by resting one on top of the other, and pulling one side of the clay upward while simultaneously pushing the other side downward. I recommend applying pressure across this join with a rubber kidney rib (3) to make sure they are well connected. It’s important to create interior slabs that will support your form (4), especially if you decide to use porcelain as it tends to slump during the firing process. Allow time for each layer to become leather hard so that it can support weight on top of it.
Once the base form is established, add details to the lower sections of the sculpture and add as you work upward. I make leaf-shaped details and adornments and use a needle tool to refine and texturize them (5–7) before attaching them to the form with water (8). Other details like facial features, arms, hands, and florals can be added in the same way (9).
Unfamiliar with any terms in this article? Browse our glossary of pottery terms!
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