MEET THE TUTORS
Our tutors bring a wealth of experience and expertise as makers in their own right.
Kit Anderson
I simply love clay, it’s transformative. I love how it changes from humble clay to ceramic in all of it’s many wonderful forms and also how it transforms people who work and make with it.
Learning ceramics was my ‘hobby’ that turned into my lifetime career. I feel very fortunate to have worked as a technician, teacher and maker for over 25 years.
Kit has been running her ceramic practice, FOTO CERAMICA, since 2006 and is known for her unique decorative process using Gum Bichromate photography directly on Handbuilt and Slipcast forms, and has contributed her research to the third edition of Paul Scott’s Ceramics and Print, A&C Black.
She has been a member of Design Nation since 2010 and a fellow since 2014, and sells and exhibits nationally at shows including Earth & Fire, Potfest, Lustre and Top Drawer.
kitsfotoceramica
Sandy Bywater
“Thirty years a potter exploring the tactile qualities of clay, a medium of infinite versatility. My first pot was made when I was ten years old. A memory that remains is one of absorption and total happiness.”
After a life-changing ceramics course at Derby University, I made a career in teaching and ceramics. Clay has taken me into many worlds, working as an artist in community settings. It has enabled me to travel and visit potters in Russia, Central Europe and two residencies in Jingdezhen, China, the home of porcelain. Clay is a medium that has enabled me to communicate my love of nature and I am as happy working in my workshop as I am walking the hills and woodlands near my Nottingham home. My current work is about living in an aesthetically pleasing environment. My planters and plant pots are designed to be used in or out of doors to enhance the beauty of the nature contained within them.
Ben Dodd
‘What is the work of a potter?
It’s putting something around nothing and making nothing useful ‘
Ken Allen – Artist / Wood Sculptor 1937 – 2015
Ben took up ceramics and has never looked back, much to the delight of his father, Mike Dodd. He set up his ceramic practice Ben Dodd ceramics in 2015 and after exhibiting at Earth & Fire in 2016, won the Best Stand Award. His work is gas fired, thrown stoneware, using slips & ash glazes naturally discovered throughout the UK.
Ben is our Throwing teacher.
Deborah Penzer
I have enjoyed working with clay from an early age. I love the possibilities inherent in the material and find the process of creating incredibly rewarding.
After a foundation course in York specialising in 3D design, I studied at Sunderland University receiving a degree in Glass and Ceramics. I have also studied at the London School of Printing. After working as a nurse for 15 years, I returned to pottery and set up a studio at home in Nottingham. My work is predominantly thrown using stoneware clay. Drawing on my background in printmaking, I like to use brush strokes and incised coloured lines with slips and oxides to create unique surfaces.
I sell my work at the Hen House in Southwell and have recently started exhibiting at fairs and shows. I won the Editor’s Choice Award at the Country Living Christmas Fair in 2021 and will be exhibiting at the Ceramics in Southwell in August 2022.
