CharmianHarris.com
Title
Nick Chapman and Charmian Harris
Contact
- Porch House
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- North Devon
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland EX38 8BT
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- 01805 622842
Description
About Nick
Nick Chapman was born in South Wales in 1954. Educated in Bedford, he worked for several years as a thrower in various potteries in England, the Channel Islands and France, before attending the Harrow School of Art pottery course from 1974 to 1976. After leaving Harrow, Nick moved to North Devon to work at Clive Bowen’s Shebbear Pottery where he helped to build his large wood-fired kiln and began to make earthenware. It was here that he met his wife, jeweller Charmian Harris, at the time also working as a potter for Clive Bowen.
In 1978, Nick started his first workshop with the aid of a Craft Council setting up grant. Although initially making wood-fired earthenware, he soon started to experiment with brighter colour and a less traditional approach to decoration.
The pots are made in a red earthenware clay by a variety of means, mostly thrown but also hand-built, slab-built and press-moulded. They are painted with a very dark slip, followed by a white slip. Dark lines are incised through the white layer and into the dark. Colour is applied in the form of slips stained with metallic oxides and prepared underglaze colour. After biscuit firing at 950°C, a clear glaze is applied which is fired to 1085°C. Lustres and precious metals are painted onto the fired glaze and a final firing matures these at 715°C.
