International Ceramics Festival - Awards

Lifetime Achievement Award

The Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to a potter or ceramist who has done much to promote the ceramic arts during their life. The recipient of this award is selected from proposals made by the participants at the previous festival.

Lifetime Achievement Award 2007

• Ruth Duckworth

Ruth Duckworth is one of the grand dames of ceramics who at the age of 88 continues to be actively engaged in the creation of new work for private and public collections.  Examples of her work are held in major institutions throughout the world such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York.

Born in Hamburg in 1919 she Emigrated to Britain in 1935 and spent the first the first thirteen years of her career working as a stone carver.  She developed a minimalist style which was carried through her work as she moved into ceramics. This period coincided with the great resurgence in functional pottery under the influence of makers such as Leach and Hamada  and an emphasis on materials and processes. Ruth’s modernist and abstract sculpture by contrast was concerned with ideas and intellect. Expanding the horizon of ceramics, she excited and influenced generations of potters.

The rapid development of her reputation especially for her work in porcelain led to a years sabbatical to teach at the University of Chicago.  Accepting the position allowed her to create more monumental works than when she lived and worked in Europe.  For this reason, she decided to remain permanently in the United States.

Ruth Duckworth is a true and worthy recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award.  

Lifetime Achievement Award 2005

• David Leach

              (received by Tim Andrews)

David Leach, the eldest son of the great potter Bernard Leach, was a potter of international reputation whose work is eagerly sought by collectors all over the world. He worked with his father at the Leach Pottery in St Ives as a student, manager and partner until the mid 50s when he set up his own studio at Lowerdown Pottery near Bovey Tracey in Devon. Aside from his own work, David worked extensively in ceramics education and for crafts organisations and throughout his career maintained his enthusiasm for ceramics, constantly striving for technical and artistic improvement.  He died in February 2005 after a long and productive life.

• Frank and Janet Hamer

Founder members of the South Wales Potters, Frank is well known for his fish decorated plates and Janet for her ceramic birds. They were suprised and delighted to receive the award in recognition of thier work producing The Potter's Dictionary. This comprehensive and thorough encyclopaedia, now in its fifth deition is used as an invaluable reference by potters worldwide. Infroamtion about this book can be found at www.pottersdictionary.com

Previous Lifetime Achievement Award winners

• 2003 Janet Mansfield (Australia) and Warren McKenzie (USA)
• 2001 Michael Casson
• 1999 Ray Finch

If you wish to nominate someone you think has made an outstanding contribution to the world of ceramics, please send your nominations to The International Ceramics Festival C/O Aberystwyth Arts Centre, UWA, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, SY23 3DE Wales UK

Student Award

Sponsored by Studiopottery.co.uk ltd  www.studiopottery.co.uk

Student Award 2009

• Serge Sanghera

This year's winner is Serge Sanghera, recently graduated from Wolverhampton. He makes large
scale wheel thrown vessels, and combines his skill in throwing with his training in two Japanese martial arts; while the leather-hard thrown piece rotates on the wheel, he strikes with a sword using martial arts movements.

The University the Student Award Winner studied at will be presented with a special ceramic piece made by Ashraf Hannah, donated by Studio Pottery, at the opening ceremony.

The Student Award enables a student or recent graduate to complete an interesting project or demonstrate an innovative technique at the Festival. It gives students an opportunity to work alongside respected international ceramists as an invited guest artist.

Serge demonstrating his sword technique, and right, his finished work, 2009

Student Award 2007

• Heidi Hockenjos, Rosie McConnell, Holly Bell, Nicholas Hardy, Georgie Sworder

Thus year the Student Award winners were a team of Brighton arts graduates who built an interactive clay mushroom village thoughout the festival. The individual structures were made from a mixture of wood, cardboard, chicken wire, paper and recycled junk, covered in clay, and festival visitors wew encourage to add to the structures in any way they wished!

Student Award 2005

• "GreenFire" by Unpacked Theatre Co

One of the aims of the award is to encourage a fresh look at ceramics; an aim which helped the committee decide upon the 2005 Winner.

Unpacked created a series of short performance pieces around the Festival site during the weekend.  Using physical theatre, movement, puppetry and animation techniques, they explored relationships between ceramic pieces and human bodies, their common fragilities and possibilities of transformation.

Unpacked creates high-octane visual theatre that fuses physical theatre, object animation and puppetry.  Darren East and Zoë Hunter both finished the MA in Advanced Theatre Practice at the Central School of Speech and Drama in June 2004, and are founder members of Unpacked.  Their current show The Fourth Violin from the Left toured to the Arcola Theatre, the BAC for the Puppet Centre Trust, the Visions Festival in Brighton, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Buxton Puppet Festival.