Ash Glaze Tea Bowl

Ali Herbert started her pottery career at Loughborough College of Art, followed by a year in London, at Goldsmiths on their Postgraduate course.  Her career has taken her to many places after her studies including working in Nigeria as a VSO potter and some years later spending time out in South India as lead potter for a charitable trust establishing a small scale production pottery in Tamil Nadu. Inspiration for some of her work comes from the visual journals kept at those times with studies of nature and pots.

After returning from Nigeria she started work as apprentice Potter to John Leach, at Muchelney Pottery with Nick Rees and Lizzie Leach where she spent 3 years contributing to the production range of wood-fired pottery.

Her forms evolve from the old containers and tools and pots from an early industrial age or rural artifacts that are now preserved in museum collections. These are shapes she likes to revisit to find her own personal interpretation. They form an exploration of the vessel which follows some focused themes – like ovals and pancheon shapes and tall straight bottles, This is a measured approach to making – the individual work compliments the flow of tableware production, with repeat wares that become familiar and trademark shapes in her collection of work.