Jo
Connell has for many years combined running a ceramics studio with teaching,
latterly at North Warwickshire & Hinckley College as leader of the HND
Ceramics and Glass programme. In 1999 she left mainstream education to concentrate on
making ceramics and now exhibits widely in the UK and abroad.
In
2002,
“The Potters Guide to Ceramic Surfaces” – a practical
guide to decorating, glazing and firing studio ceramics – was
published in the USA and the UK. This is now available in 4 other languages.
Jo is a member of the Craft Potters Association and a
member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists.
“Through working with clay for many years I have
developed a personal language of expression, based on acquired skills and
knowledge of techniques. My work explores many of the fascinating qualities
of clay, the material itself being my major source of inspiration. Subtle
colour, texture and form combine to produce surfaces of intriguingly tactile
nature. My ideas owe much to the natural world and the work evokes images of
landscape, seascape, rock strata and plant structure. Themes in nature
emerge as coloured clays are inlaid rolled and marbled, and subjected to
almost geological forces, to provide an infinite variety of pattern and
colour. Pressed, wrapped and stretched clay slabs are manipulated to make
sculptural vessels and wall panels which celebrate the plasticity of
clay.”
Jo makes a range of ceramics
includes vessels, sculptural forms and lighting for interior and garden
settings. Wall panels and hangings often combine mixed media such as
driftwood, glass and metal.
