Micki Schloessingk , vintage studio pottery salt glazed cream jug, c1980

A lovely example of Micki's wood-fired salt-glazed tableware, fired to a high stoneware temperature.  The jug is thrown and has slips and ash glaze applied to take advantage of the varied effect of wood firing, with a lovely tactile quality and lustrous sheen.

The jug has Micki's personal impressed mark.

Micki Schloessingk (born 1949) is an internationally renowned potter and a Fellow of the Craft Potters Association, and she exhibits and teaches widely.  Her work, which has been for 50 years consistent in its quiet and reflective  approach, is still very much in vogue, and Micki recently featured in the May/June issue of Ceramic Review.

After some early experience with ceramics, Micki studied under Mick Casson and Victor Margrie on the Studio Pottery Course at Harrow College of Art, in London (1970-72).  She was taught by Walter Keeler and Mo Jupp, encouraged by Gwyn Hansen and inspired by John Reeves. Her first experience of making and firing with wood and salt glazing was with Gustave Tiffoche, in Guerande, France, the summer after her first year at Harrow. On her return to college along with a couple of other women students, she built her first wood-salt kiln. Leaving college, she returned to work with Gustave and then for a spell to Breda in Spain, where she worked in a traditional pottery, making wood-fired earthenware.

In 1975 she moved to Bentham, North Yorkshire, and set up her pottery making wood-fired salt-glazed tableware. Since 1987, she has been making pots on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales.