Colin Milnes Ceramics
Welcome to a window on my work
I am excited to be displaying to the world for the first time pots which I have recently made.
Whilst this website acts as a general introduction to my ceramics, it also provides an opportunity to seek more information about individual pieces. A form is provided on the contact page for this purpose. Enquiries about commissions can also be made there.
about
Design Odyssey
Following a long and varied design career, I have returned to my first love: pottery.
In the fifties I studied ceramics at Hull Regional College of Art. After running a military design unit in Cyprus I widened my horizons in London designing graphics, products and exhibitions for leading design practices. Wishing to further expand my design experience I became Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication at Lanchester Polytechnic (now Coventry University). Eager to put theory back into practice I then became a freelance museum designer achieving international recognition.
Pottery wise, my most significant project was the design of the City of Stoke-on-Trent Museum with its internationally recognised ceramics collection. Here I wallowed in the surveillance of 30,000 pots displaying 3,000 of them, some of which illustrated the fascinating ceramics technical gallery.
I was sorely tempted to take up with clay again but the pull of museum projects like Liverpool’s Beatle City was too much to resist.
Home Again
However designing major projects was demanding. My concepts were realised remotely through co-ordination and supervision of other experts. Looking for a simpler life I have now settled in North Yorkshire with my first love. Here the direct control of ceramics processes comes as a welcome relief. I also gain great satisfaction from the hands-on versatility required in making and decorating a pot.
design
Influence
Vincent Van Gogh once told his brother Theo: “No result of my work would be more agreeable to me than that ordinary working men should hang such prints in their room or workplace”. This benign ambition never got in the way of his fierce pursuit of perfection.
If that was good enough for Vincent then it’s certainly good enough for me!
I produce pieces which are at home in a domestic setting. However this does not stop me striving for technical and aesthetic excellence.
Approach
In time honoured fashion I use narratives to inspire and provide source material. A storyline also provides guidance within a loose predetermined framework: I flounder in abstraction.
I have become increasingly aware of clay’s potential, as a graphic medium. After endless hours spent mastering techniques and materials I now feel confident in artistically expressing myself in the pursuit of distinctive decorative pots.
Method
I throw, roll, or press the clay depending on the form an idea suggests. As my interest in ceramic graphics increases forms become simpler: a cylinder often sufficing to provide a surface for an image.
Images are created by brushing, stencilling, trailing, spraying and scribing slips and pigments with sgraffito embellishments. The colours are applied under, in or on clear or tin glazes.
I use Spencroft SWE earthenware off-white clay with malachite 120’s added. This provides a very versatile body with good green strength. It has a firing range of between 1000c and 1250c.
GALLERY
