HEIRLOOMS OF THE FUTURE
Steve Harrison’s exquisite salt-glaze bowls and cups are already proving collectable today
Drinking tea is an important ritual for potter Steve Harrison, and the importance of the vessel from which it is sipped cannot be overstated.
‘I’ve got a mug at the moment that I’d be devastated to lose or break,’ he says.
‘It’s been my favourite mug for the last three years.’ Given that Steve’s "nely cra #ed mugs and other tea wares – teapots, milk jugs, beakers and bowls
– are made from exceptionally thin porcelain or stoneware, a relaxing tea break involves an element of risk but, for Steve, using a beautiful handmade cup adds so much to the ritual, it is a risk worth taking. ‘A cup has the power to transform you to a di $erent mindset,’ he says. ‘It’s a tactile thing that your "ngers investigate. It starts to become your cup: the shape of the handle; the weight; the glaze. It’s something I can’t live without.’
Steve, who was born in Wallsend, Newcastleupon-Tyne, "rst demonstrated this sensibility as a teenager, when he saved up enough money to buy a handmade cup from his school ceramics teacher. ‘I remember rushing home with it to make a cup of co$ee, knowing it was going to change the whole ritual and celebration of the drink. I didn’t even drink co$ee! And it was odd, a 16-year- old in a mining village running home with a mug.’ It’s an instinct that has fuelled his three- decade making career, and which is shared by his fans, who appreciate the values of usefulness and beauty and will pay hundreds of pounds for the pleasure of drinking from one of Steve’s mugs.
Steve ! rst discovered ceramics at school when he chose po"ery. ‘Ceramics caught me like you’ve no idea. I just knew intuitively this was the thing.’ He gained First Class Honours in Ceramics at Middlesex Polytechnic, before moving on to the Royal College of Art to do an MA, which he completed in 1993. ‘ From failing everything at 16, I’d found my niche. I was obsessed with it,’ he says. ‘ I used to go into college at 6am with the cleaners. I’d have stayed there all night if I could.’
While at Middlesex, Steve met the studio po"er Michael Casson, who came to give a guest lecture. Casson had been Steve’s hero since he had watched his BBC series The Cra! of the Po"er on a video tape borrowed from the school art department. Casson became a lifelong friend and mentor, and it was thanks to his suggestion, during the ! nal year of Steve’s degree, that Steve tried salt glazing, and hit on the distinctive crackly orange peel-like decoration that has become his signature.
The form of his vessels developed from his love of early industrial English po"ery by the likes of Wedgwood and Doulton. ‘Leach and Hamada brought studio po"ery to England and in the 1960s it exploded, with all these hippies making pots with oatmeal glazes. I came along at the tail end of that in the late 1980s, and the industrial look was refreshing to me. It was a bit more sophisticated. It looked less obviously thrown, even though it was still handmade.’
Steve has a workshop in En !eld, and one in rural Wales. Work starts in En !eld, where he throws his vessels on the po"er’s wheel, his favourite part of the process. The lids, spouts and handles are press moulded and added to the bodies, then Steve glazes and biscuit ! res before loading it all in the car and heading to Wales for the ! ring.
Salt-glaze ! ring is a dirty and di #cult process and Steve needed space for an outside kiln – hence the location. ‘ It’s so di #cult to control and that’s maybe why not many people do it. I’m on a ! ne line between success and failure. If I haven’t put enough salt in the kiln, or haven’t packed it correctly, everything will come out dark and grubby. If I’ve put too much in, the colour will be leached out and the pots will be insipid. Perfection for me is something akin to a watercolour.’
A $er 30 years of practice, these days, when Steve opens the kiln, he is happy with most of what he ! nds. Which is fortunate, because he only does four ! rings (of around 120 pieces) a year, and his work is in demand, especially in Japan where it is stocked in the Arts & Science store in Tokyo.
Japan has been Steve’s main market for the past decade and people are known to queue around the block when his new collection arrives, and save up to buy a mug or a bowl. In Japan, all his wares are used, despite prices starting at £ 450 for a mugcup, as his Japanese collectors call them. This is no surprise to Steve. ‘Art and ceremony are part of the culture there,’ he says. ‘ There’s a whole history of the tea ceremony. They know that a cup or bowl is the most signi !cant thing in your life, because it’s the thing you use the most. And that’s exactly how I feel.’
‘Ceramics caught me like you’ve no idea. I just knew intuitively this was the thing’