about me

As a child, I was fortunate to grow up among beautiful ceramics: Lucie Rie, Hans Coper and Kenneth and Ann Clark were all family friends, and my mother is a keen amateur potter.
My own throwing skills and passion for pottery developed whilst living in Taiwan where, guided by tutors working at David Pipkin’s magical Cloud Forest Studio in the densely-jungled volcanic mountains above Taipei City,

I was able to devote hours to practicing and learning alongside the students from the Chinese Culture University.

This experience allowed me to explore the simple, clean-lined, often conical shapes that characterise my stoneware, with forms reminiscent of the traditional Taiwanese and Japanese ceramic noodle bowls and tea cups that were so much part of daily domestic life there.

I work in stoneware clay bodies, sometimes a smooth, pale, almost white clay; sometimes a more coarsely flecked clay, containing tiny pieces of iron-bearing basalt. All my pieces are created by hand and each is unique.
I love creating and layering glazes, for texture and tone; my palettes reflect both the startling colours and contrasts of Taiwan’s underwater hotsprings and foaming ocean as well as the more muted heathers, lichens and mosses of rural Teesdale, where I returned to live in 2022 and where I set up my beloved wolf wood studio.

Each piece carries one or both of my maker's marks; the trees of wolf wood, a ridge of brave larch trees, as sketched by my eldest child, and my name in Mandarin,  羋璧文