oakwoodceramics: Catalogue, Doug Fitch Exhibition Pots 2007

Exhibition 2011

Doug Fitch
Exhibition Pots 2011

Artist's Statement:
I make country pots. This is not because of the impossibilities of running such a venture in an urban area, with the chopping of wood and the smoke of the kiln, but because the countryside is an intrinsic element within the fabric of my work.
If I worked in a city, so many aspects of my own nature would be different. I could not imagine that my work would resolve itself in the same way. At Hollyford, all the senses are stirred by the natural environment.
The workshop is situated at the end of a rough farm track, overlooking a shallow valley, its far side, rising fields topped by a small deciduous woodland.
In the summer, the brambles and nettles grow thick about the workshop walls. Campion and pennywort, foxglove and hemlock fill the verges and the hedgerow. The small oak tree beside the workshop bares leaves with tones of pale pink and yellow and a vast range of greens, from deep bottle to a vivid lime.
As the seasons change, the rainfall increases and huge muddy puddles surround the workshop. The array of earthenware colours in a Devon autumn is breathtaking as green of ferns and leaves become an infinite tonal range of fiery brown and yellow.
Winter brings more rain and more mud and the woodland opposite cuts harsh lines against the sky with bare branches. The sky is vast in the countryside, without interruption from buildings. The terrain of the woodland floor is laid bare.
The wood-burner is roaring and the workshop is warm enough to work in shirt sleeves. The days are short and it becomes impossible to find my way around outside in the dark; and at night time in the middle of the Devon countryside it can be very, very dark. The greens are deep and cold, but the red soil in the fields is alive with sweeping lines combed by the plough.

For me all of Doug's pots contain a real sense of place, they are uniquely of the English countryside and have strong resonance's of a time of tranquil peace and of the bucolic. They are simply pots made in the Glorious English Tradition. Long may Doug continue to make his pots.
DB

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			FURTHER PIECES FROM DOUG'S EXHIBITION COMING SHORTLY

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