After teaching Ceramics for some years, I completed a Theory/ Practice MA in Applied Art and Visual Culture at the John Cass School of Art, London. For me this was an opportunity to examine the ‘language of things’ and, in particular, ceramic things. I established my own ceramics practice in 2001, and worked for thirteen years from Archway Ceramics, a group studio in a converted railway arch in East London. During this time I exhibited widely and, in Autumn 2003, was selected as a Professional Member of the Craft Potters’ Association. Alongside this I continued to fuel my interest in Applied Art Theory, teaching Museum Studies at London Metropolitan University, here examining the ways in which the meanings of objects can change as we move them through different environments... from home to museum or studio to gallery.

 When potters talk about pots we use very anthropormorphic language. A pot has a foot, belly, neck, shoulder and lip. These very ‘human’ references describe something of the way we relate to pots. They reveal an ancient relationship between mankind and vessels, a notion of ‘pot’ that vibrates through every culture from the moment we first learned to shape mud with our hands.

 My work is hand built, predominantly coiled and sits firmly within a Western tradition of Studio Ceramics which concerns itself almost exclusively with an exploration of the vessel form. This restricted cannon, far from being limiting, allows a great deal to be said. I think of my pots as feminine. In part this is the femininity of a form that exists to be filled and emptied, in part the intimacy of an object that is made for home, but mostly this is about the actual forms themselves. My notion of ‘belly’ is replaced with that of ‘corset’ and the heavy, grounded ‘foot’ that we find at the base of many pots is set ‘on point’ allowing each piece to lift away from the table in a moment of weightlessness. A pirouette.

 In 2014 the needs of young children took me away from London to a rural life in Dorset. Here I work from my own Studio, a converted stable block, in an idyllic setting near Sherborne. Since moving here I have been selected to join a thriving collective, Making Dorset (which I currently lead) and elected as a Trustee for Dorset Visual Arts.

Victoria has written on the place of Ceramics in Contemporary Culture and has had articles published in Crafts Magazine and The Reflective Practitioner, edited by Linden Reilly.

Victoria has appeared in:

Fifty Dorset Makers, 2017, Edited by Simon Olding and Suzy Rushbrook

The Art Of Ceramics, Michael Harvey, 2016

The Ceramics Book, a collector's guide to British Studio Ceramics in 2006 as well as in subsequent editions in 2008 and 2012

February 2021 Arts in Hospital, Dorchester County Hospital

December 2020 Shortlisted for the RWA Academy Award, Bristol

October 2020 Selected for Oxford Ceramics Fair, Oxford

March 2019 Making Dorset, The Furleigh Estate

July 2017 Making Dorset, 50 Dorset Makers, Dorchester

October 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 Sarah Sclater Art at Home, Dorset

August - December 2016, Contemporary Ceramics Centre, London

May 2016, 2018 Dorset Art Weeks, Glenwood Studios, Longburton

December 2001 - 2014, Archway Ceramics, Open Studio, London

October 2011, Wandsworth Artists, London

July 2007, The Cup and Saucer Exhibition, Where I fell in Love Gallery

March 2006, The Where I Fell in Love Gallery, Warwickshire

February 2006, Gallery 27, Cork Street, London

August 2003, 2004, 2005 Art in Clay, Hatfield House, Hertfordshire

March 2003, Fragility, The Art House, Lewisham

December 2002, 2003 Hidden Art, Mile End Pavilion, London