Tutor info - Course Details, Dates & Prices
John Wheeldon specialises in the making of Raku fired ceramics using several different techniques. John was born and bred in Matlock and studied pottery at Chesterfield Arts College and Wolverhampton University. He has been making pots for thirty five years and has concentrated on raku for the past 15 years. Now a world renowned expert in the art, John has taught in Ireland, France and Norway as well as a little closer to home at Repton School in Derbyshire.
Raku is an ancient technique, originating in Japan, but now practised by many potters in the West. It's defining characteristic is a firing method whereby pots are removed from the kiln at a temperature around 1,000 degrees centigrade and then subjected to various post-firing processes. The finished pots, although fragile and porous, exhibit a range of magical surface qualities unobtainable by normal methods of manufacture.
" I feel that above all I am a potter who responds primarily to materials and processes. The forms of many of my pots refer to pieces from pre-history, especially the Bronze Age, and have developed from an ancient pot seen in a museum many years ago. I have a collection of shards found in gardens and fields which span a period from Roman to the 19th century. I find the marks left by those long dead potters so eloquent – we leave the same marks in our work today – it is like a language left by potters to be read by potters. I hope to add a few more words to the vocabulary". John
