JCJ Pottery

JCJ POTTERY are Jonathan Chiswell Jones and Kerry Bosworth who make reduction fired lustreware using traditional techniques discovered by Middle Eastern potters of the 10th century. It has been rediscovered many times since.

Our work is different simply because few people are prepared to put years of work into mastering this process, and developing the skills necessary to decorate with a brush. Brush decoration allows for the small variations which over time can amount to big changes. The end result is not fixed, but can evolve. In this way it differs fundamentally from transfer decoration or even from work carried out by skilled artisans to someone else’s perfect design.

• All the work is thrown by hand
• Bespoke lustre & porcelain pieces
• Brush decorated lustreware
• Reduction fired lustre
• Clay paste lustre
• Arabian Lustre
• Brush decorated porcelain tableware and oven ware
• Commissions are undertaken

We make our own clay pastes which contain silver or copper, and decorate our wares with them. Each piece of porcelain lustre is fired three times, and only after the final lustre firing do we know whether the work has been successful or not. It has taken just over 20 years of experimentation to achieve the results we are now getting.

Each piece we make is numbered so that we have a record of which underglaze colours were used, which clay pastes and where it was fired. All this information is useful to avoid repeating mistakes, and to repeat what we like.

The challenge and the fascination of this work is that the process is highly sensitive to small changes in atmosphere, position in the kiln and so on. There are always surprises- some pleasant, some less so, on opening a lustre kiln.

We sell our work direct to customers and collectors online as well as through half a dozen galleries in the UK and through some auction houses. We also welcome visitors to our Sussex showroom which is attached to the workshop with ample parking on site.

We welcome commissions for pots to celebrate special occasions, or simply ideas which you would like to see realised.

Jonathan owns the business and has earned his living as a full time potter for 45 years. Kerry Bosworth his colleague has worked with him for over 20 years.

Jonathan admires the values and the aesthetic of the Arts and Craft movement. They have come down through the writing of Ruskin and Morris and Bernard Leach and in the remarkable work of William De Morgan, The Royal Lancastrian pottery and Alan Caiger-Smith. It is a tradition which we are proud to continue.

Jonathan has taken part in two international lustre exhibitions- in Gubbio and in Manises- others are planned in Iran, the UK and Australia. Meanwhile he continues to experiment, to create new designs and try to keep the work alive and fresh.

Jonathan is a selected member of The Craft Potters Association and of the Sussex and Surrey Guilds. He organises an annual Sussex exhibition and a solo biennial London exhibition at The Art Workers’ Guild in Bloomsbury. Details can be found on the JCJ POTTERY website.

Trade memberships / Awards / Qualifications

Jonathan has a degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford university.

He trained at Farnham Art School and worked with Joe Finch in Scotland before starting his own pottery in 1974. He was given a setting up grant by the Craft Council, and later a loan from them to rebuild his kiln. in 1982 he won an award from South East Arts to produce a brochure on the pottery and do some experimental work with colour.

In 1995, he won an award from Arts Training South to study lustre with Marjorie Clinton in Edinburgh.

He is a selected member of the Craft Potters Association.

Contact

Peelings Manor Barns, Hankham Road, Pevensey, East Sussex BN24 5AP

Telephone: 01323 469009

Website: www.jcjpottery.co.uk

Email: jo@jcjpottery.co.uk

Social Media

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jcjpottery/

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Instagram: @JCJpottery

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