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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\nGritty though his workshop, a converted barn at the end of the garden of the farm cottage he shares with wife Hilary, undoubtedly is, from it Peter produces exquisite, intricately glazed stoneware, priced at \u00a3120 to \u00a31,500. \u2018Everything is a one-off piece of work. I\u2019m not interested in fashion \u2013 I want to make beautiful things for people to enjoy all their lives,\u2019 he says of the hand-thrown and hand-built wares that he has been making since the 1970s.<\/p>\n
Peter, 57, moved from Kent to rural Warwickshire 12 years ago, but his passion for potting goes back to childhood when, as a teenager, a local potter gave him a Saturday job and encouraged him to make things. Though it seemed obvious to almost everyone, including Peter, that he was destined to be a potter, his parents wanted him to get a \u2018proper job\u2019. As a compromise, he studied Industrial and Furniture Design at Ravensbourne College of Art in London. The pottery bug wouldn\u2019t go away though. \u2018I ended up spending all my time, from dawn to dusk, in the pottery department. That said, I did learn about lots of other materials such as wood and plastics too, which has proved invaluable.\u2019<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\nAfter his degree, he followed his heart and moved to Scotland to help establish a pottery making domestic wares. He stayed a year then returned south. \u2018It was a good experience because I realised it wasn\u2019t for me \u2013 I wanted to make things of a decorative nature,\u2019 recalls Peter.<\/p>\n
He opened his first solo studio in Kent in 1975. Now his work is in over 16 public and private collections, including Norwich Museum, Stoke on Trent City Museum and ceramics<\/a> centres in Germany, Switzerland, Japan and Korea. He has won several awards, including the peer-judged Pot d\u2019Or at Keramisto, Holland, in 2000. And, in 2004, a research grant from the Arts Council led him to start working with bronze and stone, too.<\/p>\n Peter\u2019s working day is intense, starting at 6am, when he rises to check the kiln. Then he begins a patchwork of tasks, such as drawing, throwing, glazing, and mounting pieces on hand-cut slate, that continues through to the evening. \u2018It\u2019s not a production line \u2013 I make the things I like and try to sell them. I throw a maximum of 10 items at a time, and something could wait a few months until I feel ready to decorate it. I tend to make pieces in series, but I\u2019ll stop doing a design if I\u2019m not getting any more stimulation from it.\u2019 \u2018I never go anywhere without a sketchbook \u2013 if I see a nice stone or a piece of wood I sketch it. I do a lot of drawing before I make something,\u2019 says Peter. A travelling scholarship to Egypt in 1990 was a landmark experience. \u2018I\u2019ve always been interested in ancient Egypt and there are resonances in my work of the things I saw there, such as the wind-driven sand in the desert and the traditional falucca sailing boats.\u2019<\/p>\n While shape is a key element of his work, Peter\u2019s decorative style makes it truly distinctive. He is constantly experimenting with glazes and, even after a lifetime\u2019s experience, every kiln-load of work includes a glaze test to assess a new colour or the viscosity of glaze mix. \u2018I don\u2019t find it difficult to get ideas \u2013 it\u2019s the execution and the decoration that takes the time,\u2019 he explains. When he\u2019s applying glaze, Peter works intensely, hermit-like, as the process requires maximum concentration. Before being decorated, the biscuit-fired vessels and objects are dipped into a bucket of thick, matt base glaze. For the subsequent wax relief technique to work the coverage has to be perfectly even, so he spends time sponging and scraping away excess glaze. It takes him several days to decorate enough work to pack a kiln, and as each vessel is finished and ready to fire, Peter gently places it onto the firing shelves, checking that there is no unwanted chip or glitch on the glaze. Seconds are never available because he simply discards work that he doesn\u2019t regard as perfect. \u2018Because I put so much of me into my work, it has to be good. After all, that\u2019s what people are paying for.\u2019<\/p>\n Roadshow<\/em> expert Jon Baddeley has been a fan for two years. Peter Beard\u2019s ceramics first caught Jon\u2019s eye at a London ceramics fair. \u2018I\u2019ve worked in collectables all my life,\u2019 says the Bonhams director, \u2018and contemporary ceramics<\/a> are a real bargain compared to modern art and sculpture.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Peter has a distinctive, daring style. I love his glazes \u2013 his use of colour is very unusual, and I particularly like his shell shapes. My wife and I now own four pieces of his work, which look beautiful among our collection of antique ceramics such as Royal Lancastrian and high-fired Ruskin wares. It\u2019s hard to say how good an investment it is but, if you like someone\u2019s work, you should form a collection. Buy larger pieces if you can afford to \u2013 the more you spend, the more important the piece is, because it will have been more difficult to make.\u2019<\/p>\n![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/19\/2009\/09\/MG_0837_rb-90f1db2.jpg?quality=90&resize=272%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\nSharp focus<\/h3>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\n![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/19\/2009\/09\/MG_0922-f92a8ed.jpg?quality=90&resize=275%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\nDouble glazing<\/h3>\n
COLLECTING PETER BEARD CERAMICS<\/h3>\n