80 for 80: Beautiful Ceramic Tea Bowls for Auction for St Raphaels

Potter Chris Francis has a long-standing relationship with Sutton College, having not only studied here for over 40 years but having also been a tutor too.
He turns 80 in December 2023 and had the idea for this collection of 80 Yunomi (tea bowls), to be auctioned off in aid of St Raphael’s Hospice.

St Raphael’s Hospice provides care for people in Sutton and Merton living with a life-limiting illness and their families and they have provided care for Chris’ daughter-in-law and her family and friends.
The beautiful tea bowls will be on display until the end of January 2024 and bids can be made HERE  Minimum bid £10 per piece.

Chris has written background into his discovery of Pottery and how his love for the craft has grown through the years.

‘My involvement with ceramics dates back to when I was nine or ten years old. It was then my Uncle Bert, home on a long vacation from Africa, decided to build a potters wheel and learn to throw – possibly as a result of reading Bernard Leach’s seminal ‘A Potters Book’. Bert was an eccentric and talented amateur artist who worked in a number of mediums. As part of this particular venture he dug a deep pit down into the London Clay at the bottom of the garden in North Cheam. We lived next door and much to my mother’s horror I was down the pit digging this wonderful yellow mud and then helping to sift and wash it to remove any stones and foreign matter. The wheel was turned by a bicycle which my Aunt Kath peddled while Bert developed his skill at throwing. My cousins Mary and Trisha and I all had our turn. The products were then fired in at rudimentary kiln built with house bricks and with coke and wood as the fuel. Not much survived but it was immense fun which lasted for about three months before Bert went off once again to Africa.

Several years later my interest was rekindled following a visit to a working pottery studio in Stowe-in-the-Wold. This led to me enrolling at SCOLA (now Sutton College) for the summer term in 1977 and I have been potting ever since at Sutton College and with my own set up at home.

I later joined one of Brian Starkey’s groups at the college and received much encouragement and guidance under his watchful eye. Brian as head of Pottery, Art and Design (an extremely talented potter and artist rightly remembered in the named gallery on the first floor of the college) invited me to join the teaching staff in 1991 and I continued taking the Friday evening class until 2010.

The majority of the pots I have made over the past 46 years are functional and based in the Anglo/Oriental ‘Leach’ tradition. The facilities at Sutton College are geared predominantly to the production of reduction fired stoneware using the forced air gas kiln which was specially built for the college. The flame of the kiln, the position of the pot in the kiln and the atmosphere in the kiln each contribute and affect the outcome, sometimes serendipitously, sometimes less so. Most of the glazes I use are based or developed from the classic glazes of China and Japan along with Ash glazes, each of which vary depending on the source of the wood ash used.

My hashtag ‘PlannerPotter’ recognises my career as a town planning consultant. Running a joint planning / architectural practice has required me to constantly consider proportion, scale, three-dimensional form and context all of which I also bring to my pottery. It is these aspects of the craft which make one a perpetual student, searching form, balance, texture (the feel and weight of a pot). There can be no such thing as the perfect pot. It is important to be self-critical and experience has shown that design development is an important facet in producing the desired outcome.‘

Chris Francis’ 80 tea bowls will be on display at the College until end of January 2024.

Auction bids can be submitted at https://app.galabid.com/80for80

Minimum bid £10 per piece.