Dylan Bowen. Making and decorating dynamic slip decorated earthenware
Dylan will demonstrate and teach various techniques based on his own work.
The course will alternate between making and decorating blocks, each accompanied by demonstrations of different ways Dylan uses clay and slip. These will be simple hand building and decorating techniques which students can use as a starting point to pursue their own interpretations on basic themes. The emphasis will be on working in the moment, focusing on the development of a loose and free way of using clay and slip. Dylan will concentrate more on the process than the end result. You will be encouragd to make with freedom and momentum whilst leaving space around the action of creating to consider what you have made and how that informs your next steps,. Working in terracotta clay with wires, knives, cutting harps, all manner of mark making tools as well as slip trailers. Brushes, sgraffito, and anything you can lay your hands on.
Renowned for his loosely thrown monochromatic work, Dylan Bowen is a well-established slipware potter. Having trained at the Shebbear Pottery in north Devon and Camberwell School of Art in London, Dylan and his partner Jane Bowen, who is also a potter, now work from their studio in Oxford. For Dylan, the making and decorating process blend together so that the spontaneity and energy invested in the creative process are embodied in the finished piece.
Dylan’s wheel thrown and hand-built works are a balance between traditional painting and ceramics. Inspired by music and abstract expressionism, he pours, trails and brushes slip – a liquid form of clay – onto his pieces. Each bottle is created using a combination of wheel thrown and hand-built elements. Dylan prefers to simplify his approach to applying slip and focus on gestural mark-making.
“The two biggest influences on my work are my Dad (Clive Bowen) and my wife (Jane Bowen). Both are slipware potters and I feel most of what I am able to do is built on the foundations of what they have already done. I think after a while you accumulate so many influences that they form a kind of stew in which it is harder to extract specific ingredients. I know I am constantly looking at marks, whatever the source, and sometimes that becomes distracting. Rather than enjoying the work, my first thought is, can I use this? Can this be mine? Can I use this emotion? Like a vampire!”
MATERIALS LIST FOR THIS COURSE
If you have them, bring pottery tools, an apron, drawing materials, a sketchbook.
There will be a charge of £5 per kilo of clay to include materials and firing to stoneware temperature in an electric kiln. Finished work can be sent on for a small charge.
BOOK ON TO THIS COURSE
