John Rivers was an English teacher for decades. Gradually he has taught himself to pot through trials and many errors until now he sells widely through his own shows, at The Edinburgh Festival every summer, and at high profile events such as 'COUNTRY LIVING' or the Scottish POTFEST.
He gets his own clay from an opencast site, where it has lain undisturbed for 300 million years under a coal-seam, to emerge into the light compressed and rocklike. A year later it softens so he can clean and refine it into a primary stoneware firing to cone 8/9.
John's inspiration comes from the natural world with its shapes, textures and colours, everything from deep space to the petals of a violet. These photos may convey something of the feel of the pieces, whose surface textures often come from a particular way of turning. The glazes meld into the surfaces to resemble bark, or the play of light on water. Recently I've been trying to base pieces on photographs from the Hubble Telescope.
Riddings was a mining village in the Derbyshire coalfields, and is 'semi-rural'. Matlock is the beginning of the Peak District about 10 miles away, and both Nottingham and Derby are about 12 miles away.
