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http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/may034855 1/4Ceramics Monthly May 200348

Phil Rogersby Richard Busch

PHOTOS:RICHARD

BUSCH,MAXCONIGLIO,COURTESYOFPUCKER

GALLERY

Pulling into the parking area at Marston Pottery in mid Wales, I

received an enthusiastic greeting from a canine welcoming com-

mittee. Libby and Tess, a pair of four-year-old border collies,

seemed overjoyed to see me. Their reception, I soon realized,

couldn’t be more appropriate, reflecting as they do the friendli-

ness, warmth and informality of their owners—studio potter Phil

Rogers and his wife Lynn.

The property itself fits the ideal image of a rural pottery.

Situated in a bucolic valley close to the River Wye, it’s a 700-year-

old farmstead with expansive views of rolling hills and pastures

dotted with sheep. The farmhouse, with its low ceilings, hand-

hewn beams and wonky floors, fairly oozes Old World charm.

Several handsome stone outbuildings house the workshop, kilns

and a pair of showrooms. It’s the kind of setting that many

modern potters can only dream of, though historically akin to the

rural sites where potters have lived and worked for centuries.

My visit came at an important time in Rogers’ 25-year career,

as he prepared for his second one-man show at Pucker Gallery

(www.puckergallery.com) in Boston. Rogers’ first show there, in

2001, presented a mix of reduction-fired and salt-fired pots. It

was a resounding success, bringing his work to the attention of an

expanded group of collectors and resulting in purchases by several

museums in the U.S., including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts,

the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Museum of Art,

the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, and the

Sackler Museum at Harvard University.

Says owner Bernie Pucker, “Phil’s pottery has a fresh intelli-

gence and spirit of its own. Potters, collectors, gallery visitors, all

fell in love with the directness and delicacy of his work.”

Rogers’ audience has also grown as a result of his three books.

His latest, Salt Glazing , released just last fall, has been acclaimed

both in Britain and in America. Two previous books, Ash Glazes

Jar, 11 inches (28 centimeters) in height, side fired resting on Cape Cod

scallop shells, with raw ash sifted onto neck, salt fired to Cone 11.

Plate, 10 inches (25 centimeters) in diameter, wheel thrown and rope impressed,

ash glazed, separated in a stack of five by shells filled with wadding, salt fired.

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Bottle, 9 inches (23 centimeters) in height, thrown,

altered and faceted, with coiled shoulder, thrown

neck and paddled foot, side fired on scallop shells

in a salt kiln to Cone 11.

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(1992) and Throwing Pots (1995) are still widely read, and the

former, which has been completely revised, with all new photo-

graphs, was reissued in March 2003.

Of course, Rogers’ success didn’t happen overnight. In fact, his

résumé includes some 30 solo shows in Britain and abroad, count-

less workshops around the world, member and past chair of the

Craft Potters Association of Great Britain, member of the Interna-

tional Academy of Ceramics, and director of the Festival of Inter-

national Ceramics held every two years at Aberystwyth in Wales.

His work is firmly entrenched in what may be called, for lack

of a better description, the Bernard Leach/Shoji Hamada tradi-

tion, an aesthetic fusion of medieval English and ancient Oriental

pottery distinguished by its simplicity, straightforwardness and

quiet, unassuming beauty. Rogers uses locally gathered materi-

als—clay, stone and wood ash—and relies mainly on such basic

decorative techniques as incising, impressing, faceting and fluting.

An encyclopedic knowledge of throwing techniques and of glaze

chemistry—the result of decades of study and experimenta-

tion—gives him a deep understanding of the materials and what

can be done with them, so that his work flows confidently,

fluidly, naturally.

“I am just a potter who makes pots the best way I can,” he says

with typical modesty, which can sometimes seem a little incon-

gruous considering his larger-than-life, 6-foot, 7-inch physique.

“I am not making social or political statements. Rather, I am

trying, sometimes successfully and other times not, to provide

pot-loving people with work that has beauty, grace and function,

while at the same time furthering a tradition that I am happy and

comfortable to be a part of. The challenge for me is to find my

own way along a narrow path, to seek creatively that variation and

nuance that distinguish my pots from the work of another.”

The story of how Rogers’ career developed is both interesting

and instructive. Born in Newport, South Wales, in 1951, he

A downed tree may look like free fuel to some potters, but Rogers knew

the effort to cut it into kiln-size pieces far exceeded its worth.

Gyunomi, 2¹⁄₂ inches (6 centimeters) in height, wheel-thrown

and stamped stoneware, salt glazed.

Yunomi, 4 inches (10 centimeters) in height,

stoneware with cobalt, salt glazed.

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didn’t start working with clay until 1971 when he went to the

Swansea School of Art. By then, he and Lynn had married, and

their daughter, Claire, was born. The responsibilities of support-

ing a family led him at first to focus on a career teaching art. As it

happened, the program included an introductory course in throw-

ing. It was just a basic class, but the experience encouraged him to work on his own to develop his skills. After graduation, a job

teaching painting and drawing opened up in Cambridgeshire,

England, and then, as luck would have it, a year later, in 1974, he

learned about another school nearby that was looking for some-

one to teach pottery. He got the job.

“I didn’t know much at the time,” Rogers recalls, “so I had to

learn fast just to keep one step ahead of the students. I bought a

wheel and an electric kiln, and practiced at home. Also, coinci-

dentally, there happened to be a shop in town that sold good

pots—by people like Walter Keeler, Ray Finch, Richard Batterham

and Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie. So I’d go there often and try to

figure out how, say, Finch made his teapot, the way the lid fit, orhow he made the spout, then I’d go home and see if I could make

one the same way just to learn the technique. Those people were

my absentee tutors.”Sheep are still herded through the town of Rhayader.

Marston Pottery is housed in one of the stone outbuildings of the 700-year-old farmstead.

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