Ramsgate recorder interview
Title: All fired up
Words: Russell Chater
Inspired by this year’s winner of The Great Pottery Throw Down, Ramsgate’s own Loïs Gunn, Russell Chater meets her to discuss her incredible journey and lifts the lid on more local women leading the way with clay.
Were you as glued to the recent Channel 4 series of The Great Pottery Throw Down as I was? As amazed at how much drama pottery can prompt, and how often it could reduce a grown man (judge Keith Brymer-Jones) to tears? Responding to an Instagram post from last year’s contestants encouraging applications, Ramsgate potter Loïs Gunn filled in the form and hoped for the best. Little did she know how much her life was about to change. Already a busy mum with making and teaching fitted in between, life has become even busier after her success – not that she’s complaining.
Having lived in Thanet all her life, Loïs recently returned to Ramsgate when her husband took a boarding housemaster job at St Lawrence College, the family living alongside the boarders. The coastal landscape here certainly inspires her work, but Loïs is also interested in ancient cultures. “Learning about ancient Egypt and a trip to the British Museum while I was at primary school started it all,” she recalls. “I just find such beauty and connection to other humans through objects”.
Her work clearly connected with the Channel 4 team. “It was an incredible experience,” she says. “I made some wonderful friends in the other potters. Derek, Rebecca and I would often be the ones to choose to stay at the hotel, preferring not to travel home late at night between filming, and our ‘stragglers dinners’ were a particular highlight”. But there were challenges too. “I feel that I was at the right place in my life to take part. It’s not just a pottery challenge but also a physical and mental challenge [with] challenges to my self-belief and self-image, and challenges being away from family – a big sacrifice”. Physically, Loïs pushed herself: throwing and joining big forms was something she’d never done before – particularly scary in front of the cameras. “I was immensely proud of my final piece… it was huge, intricate and a reflection of me!”
She has found the response to both the show and her as a person incredibly positive. People have told her that it’s encouraged them to give their creative ideas a try, and many have placed orders which has given her “confidence to be even more creative and experimental with my makes.” A typical day involves making jewellery, whether as a separate product or attached to her pots (something of a USP), as well as ceramics. “There’s a lot of process behind ceramics: making, refining, drying, firing, glazing, firing again,” she explains, not to mention the documenting, packaging, business and social media aspects. By the time you read this, Loïs will also have just moved into the very first studio of her own at Mui (@mui.folkware.shop) in Margate, although her ultimate goal is to “have my own studio with retail space for my pottery and jewellery.” Also in Margate, Clayspace, a non-profit social enterprise ceramics studio and teaching facility, has been “a huge part of [her] pottery journey”. Loïshopes to start helping out on one of the weekly drop-in sessions “when things calm down a bit!”
But there seems to be a way to go before then. “I’ll be making like mad for [an event in July at] Waterperry Gardens … and I’ve also been asked to make a piece for an emerging ceramics artist auction with Bonhams. I’m in talks with Potterycraftsabout a Raku collaboration … and working towards Art in Clay in Farnham in October and possibly Potfest in November.” Phew! Loïs will be showing with other talented ceramicists at these events. Karen Cheung and Kelsea Carter are particular heroes, and Loïs is inspired by Thanet based ceramicist Kate Malone, a judge on the first and second series of Throw Down. Now herself an inspiration to many, her advice to aspiring ceramicists is “don’t rush. Learn what you enjoy and how to use the clay – and go for it!”
@loisgunn
