LAURA CROSLAND
Laura creates hand thrown forms which are carved and altered before glazing. She takes inspiration from natural forms such as flowers and lizards. Dahlias are a particular source of inspiration for her as they represent elegance and beauty in the Victorian language of flowers.
She has become increasingly interested in geometric patterns, as the tessellation of shapes fascinates her. Her platters incorporate geometric patterns and natural forms in an abstract style. The main processes she employs are throwing, cutting, assembling, carving and hand building. After she has created a form, she uses it as a blank canvas to decorate. Her surface decoration techniques include carving, inlay, glazing, using hand built additions, wax resist and glazing.
She began her ceramics career at Wolverhampton University, where she studied for a BA Hons in Ceramics and later a Masters degree. She subsequently worked for Peter Beard when she learnt about the day to day life of the professional potter. She then moved to Devon to work with Penny Simpson where she learnt about production throwing.This was very useful experience for when she went to work at the Leach Pottery in St Ives for a year where she focused on the production of Leach standard ware.
She worked at the Leach Pottery until February 2016 when she moved to Chatham where she set up her studio where she now works making functional vessels of various kinds.
