Slow Pottery Summer Lighting

It started last February with a sudden burst of excitemnt to make our own table lamps, in our homestay and at home, and it sat on my to-do list for over a year until I finally cleared space for it this season, when the studio becomes entirely mine again (our summer break from courses).

I began the way I always do: logic first — size, fit, shade — then feeling — form, clay, glaze, colour — sketching and prototyping until something felt right.

 Fifteen pieces in, I couldn't decide between a rustic clay finish or a glazed one, so I fired a batch to find out — and the glaze won, partly because it felt right and partly because my deadline needed something reliable.

A month into actually making the collection, I realised I'd underestimated it completely. Some days I hit three pieces instead of the five I'd hoped for, life and family pulling at the edges, and in between all of it I kept getting distracted — by scripts, by glaze ideas, by every new thread my mind wanted to follow. I'm learning that's just how I make things: a little unfocused, a little chaotic, but it's what keeps the work feeling like mine.

Finally we have a table lamp collection that I call Slow Pottery Lighting with chanderi cotton lampshades that I've handpicked for our summer floral collection, created each lamp stem personally, a one of a kind story that the imperfections will reveal.