Claudia Clare Ceramics
Statement: I'm a feminist artist who makes painterly pots, both large and small, in full colour and monchrome. I trained as a painter but transferred to pots because I found the turning surface sympathetic to an unfolding visual narrative. Pots are our museum pieces, our archaeological and documentary evidence. Their human, cultural and historic associations connect well to the work I do interpreting women’s histories and contemporary lives. Pots also break and can be rebuilt. It is a compelling metaphor for the human experience of trauma and survival and one I deploy particularly in my feminist work.
Materials: I use exclusive ceramic materials: a dark brown clay mix, coloured slips, sgraffito line, and clear glaze, sometimes with added enamel colour and lustre. The shattered pots are rebuilt using conservation grade adhesive and Gold, Platinum, or Aluminium leaf is used to gild the edges of shards to frame the internal images or emphasise a broken line.
News in brief:
FiLiA feminist Conference, Glasgow, 2023: I will be speaking, with artist Nina Edge, about 'Maud Sulter: Glasgow's Pioneering Black Feminist Artist.' I'm also on the Lesbian Culture and Community panel, talking about Maud Sulter's mentoring of me and how we can mentor and support each other at a time of considerable hostility towards feminist artists.
A Nasty Piece of Work, featuring a ceramic 'sketch' for, 'We're Women,' 2021, is showing in San Francisco until October 16th 2023. There are then plans to show it in LA. Watch this space.
'No Men in Women's Prisons,' is my new mug design for Keep Prisons Single Sex now available to buy here for £15.00. It's one of the commissions to remember 200th anniversary of the Gaols act 1823 pioneered by social reformer ElizabethFry.
The Critic featured an in depth interview with Jo Bartosch: 'Breaking Taboos with Clay.'
TV Republika has made an excellent video of me talking about the show and some of the pots. 15 mins - View here.
I'm delighted to say we now have the result of the legal action I took against the Craft Potter's Association and University of the Arts, London when they withdrew my invitation to speak at Ceramic Art London 2022 and show a selection of pots related to the planned lecture. Read what happened here including the statement from Levin's who represented me.
The Daily Mail, 'Femail Magazine,' published: 'Now It's Ordinary Women Like Us Being Cancelled,' by Jill Foster, which includes a section on an ordinary, everyday, potter - me.
Don't miss 'Broken' the excellent new book by Katie Treggiden subtitled 'Mending and repair in a throwaway world.' The chapter on social justice activism includes a beautiful section on 'And the Door Opened,' my project with women@thewell'
Feminist Satire, No Safe Spaces,' an exhibition of feminist satirical pots attacking extremist ideology including: religious fundamentalism, the sex trade, and Gender politics and institutions has now closed in Warsaw. You can still read the lively and well informed introduction by Josephine Bartosch on the Ujazdowski Castle website and on the News section of this website via the the links, in bold, above.
Remembering Atefeh, (2011-13) has been acquired by the Women's Art Collection, Cambridge.
Filia Commission Jug,Sink the Sex Trade, was shown at Filia Conference, Cardiff, 22-24th October 2022. The posters and cards are now up in the Filia Shop on my 'artist' page.
Excellent review of my recent show, 'Fired' in October 2022, with Frances Aviva Blane, by critic Corinna Lotz, on the Real Democracy Movement site, 'The Stuff of Dreams and Nightmares.'
I have joined the HOPE, (History of Prostitution Expunged,) campaign partnered with the Centre for Women's Justice. Currently, a woman or girl convicted of 'soliciting and loitering' has the record of that conviction retained until she is 100 YEARS OLD. You can read more here and donate to the campaign. Watch this space for a chance to see the pots.
Finally - you can follow me on any of the following social media platforms for updates. Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube
