Masterclass with Martin Pearce

Martin Pearce

My first encounters with clay were at the local Technical College in my then hometown of Southend-on-Sea. Finding myself beginning on the A Level route and having serious doubts about my initial choices, I found myself wandering into the ceramics department. I was immediately drawn to the hands-on practical way I could apply myself in this earthy space. What also struck me was the supportive nature of the community that resided in the college pottery. I felt a sense of familiar comfort and reassurance that enabled me to find an avenue for self-expression in what proved to be an incredibly versatile material. Tutors Liz Culley and her late husband Bennett Cooper showed me a way forward that no one in school seemed to know about. Visits to Bennett’s wonderful inspiring workshop in Mistley gave an insight to a different way of life. It felt like there was no going back.

Martin Pearce

As a child, I was shown around a pottery workshop where I was fascinated by the tools and equipment and the idea of producing a thing of beauty from nothing; gold from base metal. This was a glimpse into a different world that I wanted to revisit. However, it took me another 30 years.

I had been working as an interior designer and occasionally needed to source ceramic pieces for clients. Then, eventually, I had the opportunity to take my first steps into the world of ceramics with a hobby kiln and a work table in the corner. It was here that I started to play, and I am still playing.

Martin Pearce

Whatever I have learned has been through trial and error, talking about ceramics with other makers, reading and endless visits to galleries, fairs and exhibitions.

After a short foray into wheel-throwing, I decided that handbuilding was the way forward for me. Although throwing a pot is a miraculous and highly skilled achievement, I just love taking a lump of clay and coaxing and cajoling it into life.

Over the last few years, I have been developing the kind of organic shapes that are described in this feature. I started making rings because it seemed like a difficult thing to do but over time a visual language emerged with its own rules. I see my work as an urban interpretation of the natural environment.

Martin Pearce

When I sit down to make a new piece, I do not have a fixed idea of what I am going to make. I might pick up a lump of clay and pinch out a shape, or roll a small slab and twist it into a shape I like but from then on, the clay takes over. Ideas emerge as the form grows. I refer to it as like walking round Venice, you are not sure where you are or where you are going but around every corner there is something to draw you on.

The construction of a form is a slow process, often taking more than a week for the larger pieces. I am usually working on two similar pieces at the same time, and sometimes I am also engaged on a third quite different shape. I arrive in the studio in the morning to assess the previous day’s work, turn on the radio, and get down to another good day playing with the clay.

Martin Pearce

I am often asked what the inspiration has been for a piece. Frankly, I am never quite sure. My aim is to make pieces that are a harmonious composition of mass, line and form, an object made to provoke thought and a sense of completion and satisfaction. 

For more details visit martinpearceceramics.com