Taylor Shaw Ceramics North Yorkshire, United Kingdom

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Taylor Shaw is a ceramic artist and founder of The Scarborough Pottery. Her practice explores the relationship between ceramics, landscape and place. Through her ongoing “Making With Place” research, she uses locally gathered clays, geological materials and waste ashes to create functional ceramics and vessels.

My practice focuses on wheel-thrown functional ceramics and vessels, exploring the relationship between materials, landscape and place. Through my ongoing “Making With Place” research, I collect and process local clays, rocks, chalk, sand and other geological materials from the Yorkshire landscape, alongside locally sourced waste ashes, developing them into glazes and ceramic surfaces.

My research also looks to archaeology and the way pottery was historically connected to the materials and resources available to makers locally. I’m interested in bringing some of this connection back into contemporary ceramics, without recreating historical work.

Wood firing is becoming an increasingly important part of my practice, allowing flame, ash and atmosphere to become part of the finished surface. Ultimately, I want to understand the materials I work with more closely and explore what it means to make from a place, rather than simply make in it.