Stephen Parry, British studio pottery wood fired large stoneware bowl, c1990

Size: 34 cm in diameter, external depth 9.5 cm.

Condition:  Excellent condition, no chips cracks or restoration.

This is a lovely example of Stephen Parry's wood fired stoneware. Hand thrown, it is decorated with simple but effective motifs and finished with a celadon like ash glaze in bands in the central well. The glaze has fired to a light olive green with a crackle all over. The bowl has been fired in a wood-fired kiln, giving the clay in parts a nice "toast" colour.  The central band in the bowl has bee shielded from the flames of the wood firing using a resist so the grey of the raw clay is revealed.  Stephen Parry's impressed mark is on the outside of the foot.

Stephen Parry trained at Croydon College of Art 1974-77, Dartington Workshop 1977-79 and in France using wood-fired kilns. Stephen set up his present pottery at Ryburgh, near Fakenham in rural Norfolk in 1981 and makes a range of functional pots and one-off pieces using stoneware and porcelain clays.  Glazes are made from different types of wood ash. All his work is fired using wood. Stephen is a fellow of the Craft Potters Association, an honour awarded to those "whose work is of the highest standard in all respects – outstanding in its expression of the art of the potter, with a quality of craftsmanship appropriate to its concept and with a powerful and well established sense of individual identity."