Anna Lambert

Anna is one of my favourite local potters and I now have four of her pieces which I thought I'd share with you. Her studio is at the Junction Workshop, in Crosshills, North Yorkshire and can be visited by appointment or during North Yorkshire Open Studios. She is best known for her handbuilt white earthenware vessels and complex objects like candleabras, with applied moulded birds and fruits in a style referencing European folk ceramics. My first piece is a finger bowl in this style with an applied Maran hen that I bought at open studios in 2005. 8.1cm (height)

A couple of years ago Anna began to find it harder and harder to spend all day moulding and painting and I think she also fancied expanding her horizons so she decided to make a change of direction and began a ceramics MA at the University of Central Lancaster. I love the new style which is much more lyrical and rooted in the poetic landscapes of England and Yorkshire in particular. The next image shows her 'Red Field' plate which I bought from a show at Craven Museum last year. You can see how different it is to her earlier work, much freer and more abstract. 29.7cm (max diameter)

This next plate came from an open day she had just before last Christmas. The sgraffito branches were inspired by ash trees, now threatened with destruction so it's rather poignant. 22.6cm (max diameter).

And finally, although I didn't make it over to her MA degree show this January 2013 I bought this from the online blog she wrote during her research . She brought it over when the show was over. I love it to bits - inspired by a place called Farnhill Moor with its birds and birch trees. c9.3cm (height).

I can't wait to see how her work develops! Her mark is a sgraffito monogram as follows, usually inside the footring:

Here's a link to her MA blog:
Anna lambert's blog

Thanks for the post

Anna Lambert had an exhibition at Contemporary Ceramics London in August. The photos are some of the pieces there, and the quote from the Online introduction to the exhibition.
         'Through 40 Years in Clay, nationally recognised maker Anna Lambert presents a new collection of handbuilt earthenware ceramics celebrating the landscape.

Influenced by a practice of landscape drawing, these works evoke Anna’s emotional attachment to place – her own valley in Yorkshire and the land around her mother’s home, amongst others.

She creates three-dimensional paintings through her work; carefully considered forms merge with surface scenes of trees, field edges and orchards. Assembling her pieces from slabs of clay, she then alters, cuts and fettles them, occasionally adding sections of texture from carved or linocut designs. Through her surface designs she explores narratives relating to climate change in the local landscape and the regeneration of orchards.

In this poignant exhibition, Anna explores a newfound sense of space, light and simplicity in her forms and surfaces. She also implements new colours made from mixing slips, oxides and body stains to bring more subtlety to her palette.'