Inspired by the ever-changing landscape of her rural East Ridings home in Yorkshire, Jill Ford’s ceramics range is as intelligent and distinctive as the forces that shape it.
Jill Ford began working as a potter in 2002, converting her garage into a studio pottery and establishing her company Jill Ford ceramics. Leaving behind a career as a primary school deputy head teacher to spend more time with her own children, Jill also returned to her love of art and following an open college network course at York was “bitten by the bug”, leading her on to a HND in 3D Design Crafts, specialising in Ceramics.
Her innovative work, which encompasses contemporary porcelain wall pieces, porcelain vases and bowls thrown on the wheel and slip cast porcelain candlesticks is now sold in an impressive host of galleries and shops both in the UK and overseas, including New York. While her work is enjoyed far and wide, Jill works fairly reclusively, taking inspiration from her quiet yet stunning surroundings.
“I live in a very rural area in a quiet farming village with no through roads,” explains Jill. “The Ings land is on a flood plain and just a stone’s throw away. I feel very close to nature here and it influences my work a great deal. I do a lot of watching – it’s all there for you and feeds into my work. For example, the floods create a large expanse of water with wonderful reflections on the surface that have inspired some of my wall pieces.”
Her latest work was inspired by the most recent and extreme weather conditions as she describes. “Winter is a particularly inspiring time of year and we experienced extreme temperatures as low as -17 because we are low-lying here and the cold lingers. This made fantastic ice formations, which were frozen for a long time. The ice was incredibly thick and you could see the layering of ice blocks and snow. It was very white, so it lent itself well to my use of porcelain, especially when built up in really thin layers of clay.”
Jill’s work mirrors the seasons, both in the processes she uses as well as the changing nature of her landscape. “I have a real attachment to the seasons,” she says, “because they dove-tail with my working year.”
January and February is typically a quiet time in the ceramics world but is a period of great energy and activity for Jill. It is when she finds her inspiration for the year and does much of her sketching.
“I sketch to gather information,” she explains, “This is how I start the design process and begin to sort it all out, to see what elements I want to focus on before I begin to use the clay. I prefer sketching to photographing scenes because a sketch will capture just what’s important to you. Then I start playing with the clay, interpreting what I’ve seen and sketched, by drawing into the clay with texture and pattern.”
By April, the ceramics scene is starting to warm up, like the weather, until it is very busy during the hotter months of summer with crucial shows such as Earth & Fire and Origin, both of which are attended by Jill. Then, during the countdown to Christmas Jill is busy meeting demand from stockists and exhibitions.
But throughout the year Jill is constantly inspired by the world around her too. For example, her floral range was the result of Art in the Garden, an event she took part in where artists were invited to Sledmere House to spend the day sitting, sketching and chatting with the public.
“That’s where I discovered a shrub rose variety called Charles de Mills,” says Jill, “which is very unusual. It has a quartered, spiralling structure on a flat plate of petals which I could envisage recreating in wafer thin layers of porcelain.”
She continues: “Landscapes are a perennial favourite of mine. There’s a silver birch copse on the riverbank nearby, that features on the Serenity collection of wall pieces on the Landscape range of pots. I will revisit the range every year with a different angle each time.”
She finds that people buy differently according to the time of year and their mood, which is seasonally affected. “My white work is popular during the summer as gifts for weddings,” she explains, “as is my coastal work. The fact that my work is also shaped by the seasons and how I’m feeling means it taps into the feelings of those that buy it and they respond to it.”
Jill’s recent work is tending towards more abstract nature, created with very deep textures, which is informing her wall pieces and a range of Strata vessels. She is also working on new shapes thrown on the wheel such as curvaceous pots, which are spherical or teardrop-shaped.
“It’s quite difficult to shape porcelain to curve in towards the top of a pot ” she explains. “Then I’m distressing the pot quite heavily, almost like plastering it with a trowel. It’s a process of applying rough yet delicate layers of porcelain onto a refined form.”
She continues: “I spent some time sketching by the coast looking at rock formations and strata, which translate really well into porcelain because it has a fragile strength. Porcelain is a fine, smooth clay, difficult to work with but once it’s fired it’s becomes strong and resilient so you can create very thin surfaces and objects.”
While Jill creates each new piece of her range sensitively and intuitively, responding to the natural stimuli around her, she is fortunate that it has such a wide popularity.
“I am aware that my work has to appeal to a broad spectrum of people,” she admits. “This isn’t a hobby, this is my job. I make things that go in people’s homes in different settings. I’m keen to draw those customers in that want something very personal and I like to work on bespoke commissions, but I also want my work to be accessible and inclusive, to be able to have a place in anyone’s home.”
Though she is now working as a full-time, professional potter, Jill still likes to revisit her teaching skills by running workshops for children.
“As a crafts person I’m always trying to raise the profile of craft and as a teacher I enjoy trying to educate,” she admits. “We get kids to have a go and it’s very hands on. The workshops are great for special needs adults and children too because clay is so tactile. There’s also no right or wrong in clay and if you don’t like it you can just squash it and start again.”
As part of her aim to help raise the profile of craft, Jill was involved in the Craft & Design month this year, which was a national initiative organised by Craft & Design magazine. This was launched with an exhibition by 20 craftspeople in London and a Press launch with celebrities and speakers (including her sister Linda Barker).
“I love handmade items,” she declares. “I made a set of drinking cups that don’t have handles but instead have dimples where you would naturally place your thumb to pick it up. It’s magical. I like feeling those marks of the maker where the potter has left an imprint because there’s a connection with the person who made that item.”
It’s clear that Jill is a passionate champion of all crafts but she also has a genuine love of her own chosen field of ceramics.
“It’s a very supportive community. I think we’re quite grounded in many ways. We are people who like working with our hands and are down to earth, literally,” she laughs.
Now, Jill is getting ready for Origin the Contemporary Craft Fair at Old Spitalfields Market that begins at 22-28 September 2011. See Jill at stand number D07
