The patina of age, delicate patterns, fragments from life and fragments from memory. Claire Baker’s ceramics are curiously intriguing, whimsical and just a bit theatrical. Inspired by the darker side of Victoriana, and in particular, Miss Havisham’s wedding table, Claire says that her work comes out of revisiting memories and emotions associated with vintage ceramics.

She says is obsessed with junk shops and spends hours scouring them for pieces that can act as both inspiration and for inclusion in her own work as objects of adornment. Her resulting work has won various awards, and has been exhibited all over the world, including New York, Geneva and London.

 

 

 

Claire grew up in a big rambling and happy house in Wiltshire, UK in the 70s. Frequent trips to her grandmother’s house were filled with marvels – not least of which was being allowed to rummage through an old trunk of clothes from under the stairs. “It was huge and filled with the most exotic and eclectic mix of clothing; a kimono, velvet corsets, waist coats and hats, silk shoes, a lime green silk skirt with red and white ribbons hanging down with coins hanging from the bottom, and another skirt with gold coins stitched all over it; the textures, layers, smells and enchantment have stayed with me all my life. We would dress up, wind up the old gramophone and dance around the house or run to the roadside and wave at the cars. It definitely started my love with texture and the theatrical.”

She also counts herself as fortunate enough to attend a forward-thinking primary school, where the headmaster organised for them to have excursions to Bath Academy of Art (which was based in the same town). There, the primary students would then have art lessons with Academy students. “I remember making a puppet!”

 

 

Claire uses a variety of objects in constructing each of her pieces, often including teaspoons as handles and feathers as decoration. She usually uses similar techniques for most of her pieces, press-moulding the smaller pieces directly from Victorian tableware in order to capture their vintage forms, and then using a collage of textural surfaces, slips, glazes, transfers and lustres to achieve the final surface. Each piece is fired 5 times to achieve its distinctive patina. She refers to her larger pieces as ‘drawings in clay’; they are slab-built recreations of her drawings, spontaneous and richly textured.

“My work is highly ornate and is adorned with printing and an array of visual ephemera. Each piece I have created is a spontaneous response to the reworking of ‘precious’ objects resulting in a sensory banquet.”

 

 

Claire has a list as long as her arm of other artists she admires – several painters such as Paula Rego for her rich darkness, Michael Sowa for his whimsy, and Frida Kahlo for her very powerful images of self.

“Vivienne Westwood is just amazing, she is my favourite clothes designer – completely theatrical & OTT, and she doesn’t give a damn, she makes what she likes & I admire her for that. And I was completely overwhelmed when I went to the House of the late Dennis Severs; 18 Folgate St, Spitalfields, London – it’s amazing and I will be sketching up there this winter for inspiration.

“Lastly I go to see Giffords Circus every year. It has no animals apart from two beautifully looked after horses, Brian the Goose and a sausage dog. It is amazing, beautiful, creative, theatrical, magical, enchanting, spell binding and every single year I want to pack up my bags & run away with it!”

 

 

Like anyone, there are times when things don’t according to plan. But Claire doesn’t let it get to her, “I don’t have any worst moments; I truly believe in ‘happy accidents’, and a lot of my best work has come from such ‘accidents’. The thing to do is always record them or you can never repeat them! And I don’t abide by the ‘rules’ – if you want to put stoneware glaze on an earthenware pot – do it & see what happens.”

Despite only graduating four years ago, there here have already been some memorable moments for her. “Just after I graduated, I was at a show in London called ‘New Designers’. A buying team from Anthropologie, New York came, and bought a lot of work and shipped it to their shop in the Rockefeller Centre! Then a year after graduating I was selected by The Crafts Council as 1 of 17 emerging makers that year to have a place on their ‘Hot House’ programme, where you receive 6 months of mentoring and business help. It was brilliant, I was mentored by jeweller Anna Lewis and two international ceramicists – Katharine Morling and Stephen Dixon.”

 

 

For pure whimsy, I asked Claire what she would make if I gave her a cardboard box, a marker pen and a sharp knife. “I’d make a cooker! When I was a child I always wanted a ‘play kitchen’. They were so expensive then that I didn’t get one, so being creative I asked my mum for a cardboard box, cut it and stuck it and drew hot rings and knobs on it and it was my cooker. I can’t think of these three items together without wanting to recreate my cooker. Ironically I am a terrible cook!”

And a last piece of advice? “Don’t listen to advice. Listen to yourself, you always know the answer.”

You can find more of Claire’s work on her website, www.bakerart.org.uk.