Pottery by David Parsonage
Pottery is one of my main obsessions. I came to the discipline by a tortuous route, taking along the way detours including a study of Quantum Physics, Watercolour Painting, Printmaking and Collage.
For many years pottery was something that other people did, (including my father and paternal grandmother), so my best efforts to resist going down the pottery route were doomed. It was in my genes. Eventually the discovery of "wild" pots, that designed themselves during the making, aligned and amalgamated with my love of the elements that here in West Cornwall surround us. The constantly evolving colours of the sea and the sky, which develop of their own accord, can be discerned in the glazes that I choose, and the forms that develop in my pots are reminiscent of forms in nature that surround us.
For many years pottery was something that other people did, (including my father and paternal grandmother), so my best efforts to resist going down the pottery route were doomed. It was in my genes. Eventually the discovery of "wild" pots, that designed themselves during the making, aligned and amalgamated with my love of the elements that here in West Cornwall surround us. The constantly evolving colours of the sea and the sky, which develop of their own accord, can be discerned in the glazes that I choose, and the forms that develop in my pots are reminiscent of forms in nature that surround us.
Escape
Born and raised in the industrial heart of the Black Country, some of my earliest memories are of wandering off to an area of green pasture and ponies near to my home. Always seeking wild places, ranging over the Basalt hills, seeking out the ponds with their teeming invertebrate and insect life, immersing myself in the wonders of nature. School was adjacent to an Iron Foundry. Inside it was a glance into the jaws of Hell. Dark figures moving, scurrying with ladels of red-hot molten metal. The air was thick with foundry dust, the environment was darkened and dismal. Holidays in Wales were like visiting a pristine land, another world, in which was safety and comfort Finally, an opportunity arose to escape to West Cornwall, and eventually here to Trezelah, in "The Magic Land"........................
