So, after looking at different styles of oribe ceramics I've decided to go for the 'Ao' oribe style which combines white with patches of green glazes and decorations in either black or oxide reds. My very first step is to decide on the kind of clay I use. As my intentions are to hand-build quite large pieces, either figures or vases or platters, I needed something with plasticity and strength. At the same time I want the colour of the clay to go with the glazes. Thus, in order to limit the number of clay bodies I use I've decided to use Valentine's ES40 for it's great hand-building properties and combine it with some red terracotta clay in order to warm up the colour of the body. Only real d

So, recently, while decorating a ceramic piece using patterns “borrowed” from Iznik pottery made during the Ottoman empire, I had a moment of doubt and asked myself whether I was guilty of crossing ethical boundaries through acts of “cultural appropriation”? I didn't stop in my tracks but I thought there may be something here to look out for. For a cultural purist my ceramics may seem transgressive – even though in an admittedly quiet way – but that is their intention. To me purism is the enemy of pluralism and, historically the actuality of cultural purism is marginal (and the idea of cultural purism has most often been used as a political propaganda tool to assert the perceived superiority