info@studio-pots.com			Harlequin Gallery
Chris Lewis
Stoneware bowl with porcelain slip decoration. Height: 9.5cm. (3.75") Diameter:16cm (6.25") Price: £40	Wood-fired teapot with running glaze. Height (to top of handle): 18.0cm (7.1") Price: £100
Chris Lewis has been potting at his current workshop in Sussex since 1976 when he converted some farm buildings into a showroom and workshop. He spent 1978 travelling in West Africa studying traditional pottery making techniques and this has influenced many of his shapes and decorations. Up until the spring of 2000 Chris had been using a two-chamber wood fired kiln that he had built twenty years before. As Chris says," For some time I had not been satisfied with the results obtained from the old kiln. It had various shortcomings that I had never been able to satisfactorily overcome. In particular I wanted to have more surface texture and evidence of the firing process on my pots and had been impressed by the results coming out of the kilns of Nic Collins and Svend Bayer. Accordingly, I built a single chamber catenary arch kiln in which many of the pots are in direct contact with the wood and embers during the firing process." Chris goes on to say that this method increases the risks involved in firing the work produced over a period of three months - the time required to make sufficient pots to fill the kiln. Nevertheless, he believes that the potential for interesting results far outweighs these risks. All of Chris's pots whether domestic ware or garden pots are produced in stoneware. The domestic ware is ovenproof and the garden pots guaranteed 100% frost proof unlike cheaper imported products on the market.
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