Susanna Blatherwick

Teacher, ceramicist, researcher and artist.

Areas of specialist interest:

  • Alternative earthenware ceramics in 20th century British studio pottery.
  • M.Phil. thesis title: ‘Archaeology of the House, Site, Object, Context. Interpreting a Collection: A study of the life & work of Robert Louis Blatherwick (1920-1993)’.

Profile:

I am an artist, maker, researcher, and make painterly slip-decorated ceramics. I studied art & education at Homerton College, Cambridge and began teaching ceramics in a secondary school in Hammersmith. While teaching I received day-release to undertake an Honours Degree in ‘Fine Art & Critical Studies’ at Central St. Martins School of Art.

Following this I worked as a Principal Examiner and consultant writer/editor of assessment related material for vocational art & design education for the examinations awarding bodies. After several years I became self-employed; to update my ceramics practice I completed a Diploma in Professional Ceramics Development at Derby University.

More recently I undertook a research Master of Philosophy with Manchester Institute of Research & Innovation in Art & Design at Manchester Metropolitan University. I documented and contextualised the previously unrecorded ceramic work of my late father. He had spent his life working with ceramics as a teacher, artist, and self-employed potter. He won a scholarship to work at Wedgwood in 1940 before working for Michael Cardew and Bernard Leach during the Second World War, when others were undertaking war duties.

I presented a poster (2015) and had a paper published by The Museum of International Ceramics in Faenza, Italy (2016). My thesis Archaeology of the House, examines some of his work in relation to other British studio pottery movements. He developed an earthenware which was not slipware but had the appearance of stoneware (Ismay). I am the existing authority on his work and field questions from interested persons, collect images and examples to add to my records/collection. When not practising my own ceramics I disseminate information relating to my ‘Roots, Records and Research’. For further info click here.

Skills:

  • Teaching art & design, ceramics
  • Making slip-decorated earthenware, hand-building
  • Research, writing and editing

Buxton/ Manchester/ Stoke-on-Trent / Lincoln.

sue.blatherwick1@gmail.com