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CHRISTINE BULL
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Text of the article published in The Craftsman Magazine July 2006Christine Bull at West Dean College After more than 25 years’ throwing pots, Christine Bull decided to learn a new skill – handbuilding. So she enrolled on a weekend ceramics course at West Dean College in West Sussex with Carolyn Genders. Here, she describes how the experience refreshed, inspired and gave a new dimension to her work. At college – now part of Oxford Brookes University - I decided to specialise in ceramics and was fortunate enough to have a wonderful tutor called Geoffrey Northcote who took some of us on to be awarded our Licentiate Membership of the Society of Designer-Craftsmen as well as our Certificate of Education. I have either taught pottery or made it ever since. It was during a year at The Kristen Pottery in Beaulieu that I learnt the nitty-gritty of running a studio, including production throwing – very thinly, with very small amounts of clay. It seemed such a battle – if only I could have had another ounce, I could throw that mug! But it paid off and now I am pleased to be able to make thinly thrown pots. The owner of the pottery had trained with Alan Caiger-Smith, so I also learnt to do brushwork with oxides and stains on a white tin glaze base. This has become a theme throughout my pottery career.
When the children came along, I stopped full-time production of pots and returned to teaching part-time, only taking on a few private orders. I enjoyed working with children as they are unrestrained in their creativity and ideas. In 1998 I began working part-time at Selborne Pottery in Hampshire, which I did for about six years. I threw and threw, re-discovering and developing my skills under Robert Goldsmith. I became familiar with reduction stoneware glazing and wax resist decoration with oxides and combined this with work in my own studio (a converted out-house with the comfort of heating and hot water!) in my present home near Petersfield. Teaching adults part-time at The Farnham Pottery with a group called West Street Potters was another area of my work, and it was around this time that I felt I wanted to broaden my knowledge of other methods of making pots which I had touched on at college, for myself and for the benefit of the people I was teaching. So I decided to do a weekend coiling and slip decoration course at West Dean College with Carolyn Genders, whose work I had seen. West Dean College came highly recommended – I was aware that the tutors there were well known and had credibility in the arts world so I knew it would be a good standard of teaching. I’d also heard it was a lovely setting and that the workshops were well set up. The experience was both liberating and refreshing – the rhythm of coiling and scraping pots was a total contrast to production throwing. It was releasing to let vessels curve with irregular tops and to let the pot grow slowly, which has also freed up my throwing skills. The uninterrupted hours of experimenting and learning were wonderful.
My throwing has become much freer and although I think I will always be a thrower, I am enjoying handbuilding now as well – there is a place for both and for combining different techniques. My inspiration comes from stripes and lines in nature – such as shadows of a fence post, lines in bark or wood, reflections of tree trunks in water, curves and lines in deserts. I use these ideas either for the shapes of vessels or their decoration. For anyone trying to develop their craft, I would say explore other techniques within your craft to see which one you like best. Take a break sometimes to get refreshed and learn again – it helped me enormously!
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I have enjoyed painting and making crafts for as long as I can remember. My mother went to Putney Art School in the l930s and would sit and draw and paint with me as a child in the l950s at our home in Rustington, Sussex. My first experience of clay was while I was working at a school in Sussex before starting teacher-training - I threw a little pot on the school wheel and glazed it. I was hooked and couldn’t wait to do more!
I set up my own studio in 1978 when my husband Richard and I moved to Petersfield in Hampshire. It consisted of a shed at the end of a long garden of a Victorian terraced house - I had to carry buckets of hot water up the garden from the kitchen as there was no sink or heating (except when the kiln was on!) and decorated the pots in the kitchen. I sold to shops in the South, and Liberty’s in London put in regular orders, much to my amazement – if they had only seen where I was working!
That was two years ago, and although only three days in duration, the course has helped my work to develop in several ways. I still work in the Maiolica style of tin glazed decoration, but I am developing the use of wax resist and the layering of oxide patterns that Carolyn introduced me to, in bowls particularly. I often combine these patterns with wax calligraphy, using Bible quotations which reflect my Christian faith, and take commissions for these larger pieces. 