James Lobb

I'm interested in the bond that people form with their things. Whether alone or gathered with many at a social function, the instruments of the ritual of eating become as important as the food itself. It is not simply the appreciation of the handmade, but the realization that the hand made vessel is much more than the containment of food. Pottery is also a vessel to explore desire, hunger, comfort and sensuality. Cups, vases, teapots, jars and bowls. The objects themselves are skin stretched over an interior structural space. This is something that is both inviting to touch and comforting to hold.

In a medium where the aesthetics of tactility can be just as important as the visual, I wonder what will arouse the desire in the viewer to touch. I continually return to two ideas. I am interested in the sensuousness of the human form and the lusciousness of vegetation, particularly the edible. I've chosen not to make these references obvious or explicit, rather I simply wish to flirt with or suggest to the viewer and allow for him to make his own discovery.

I rejoice in the ability of this grey mud to rise up and hold a form. This stuff feels wonderful in my hands and I love to watch it take shape. As a pinch potter and coil potter I am very in tune with clay at its various drying stages and am infatuated with the spot just before leather hard, it's malleable stiffness, where it almost moans as I pinch it. I want this wet porcelain feeling to still be visible in the final piece. I feel lucky to have such a big crush on my material.

Many of us share a raw and urgent vitality in the urge to make. To make something beautiful, to cook a delicious meal, to build a useful pot to hold it, to have an engaging conversation, to laugh with friends, to work hard on an inspiring project, to think hard about what drives your life and to struggle to articulate it within the confines of the English language. Basically, I want to make the smartest, sexiest pots that I can.