March 28, 2021 • 32 mins
Peter White had a successful and busy engineering business, perhaps too
busy. After falling ill he decided to make a big change in his life, taking himself
away from the business and considering what to do next.
Since then he has studied for a BA then an MA in ceramics, trained and
worked as an art and design teacher, started his own pottery studio and
become a much-loved and very successful contestant on Channel 4's
The Great Pottery Throw Down.
In this episode he chats with me about all aspects of his return to creativity.
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Researched, edited and produced by Claire Waite Brown
Music: Day Trips by Ketsa Undercover / Ketsa Creative Commons License Free Music Archive - Ketsa - Day Trips
Artworks: Emily Portnoi emilyportnoi.co.uk
Photo: Ella Pallet
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Podcast recorded with Riverside and hosted by Buzzsprout
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My guest for this episode is a member of the
Creativity Found Collective, apromotional and networking
membership for artists andcrafters who share their
creative skills with grown-upsthrough workshops, online
courses, products and kits.
There's a link to their page atcreativityfoundcouk and if you,
too, would like to join us,visit creativityfoundcouk.
(00:24):
Slash, join us.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Do you know what?
I'm not going to do thisanymore.
I can get myself out of thissituation and get my head off
that.
I'm going to make a life change.
Irresponsible people call me.
Collective is one of thosethings where the creativity
evolves because it changes Onmen.
(00:53):
Of course, the great potterythrowdown happened On men.
They're all changed.
Anybody that's self-motivatedcan do it.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Hi, I'm Claire, founder of Open Stage Arts Drama
and Singing classes for adults.
Lots of the adults who come toour classes and online events
are looking for a creativitythat has been put on the back
burner during their sensiblegrown-up years.
I have found this to be trueamong other creatives, too, so
I've decided to find out moreabout the painters,
(01:27):
photographers, writers,printmakers, actors, crafters,
teachers, musicians and morethat have found or re-found
their creativity later in life.
Today, I'm speaking with PeterWhite, who began studying for a
BA in ceramics in his late 40sand, in 2021, was a finalist on
(01:49):
TV's the Great Pottery Throwdown.
He has had an interesting andemotional journey in life and on
the show, and is passionateabout inspiring others to tap
into their own creativity, nomatter what their age.
Hi, peter.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Hello Claire, lovely to meet you again.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
And you.
Lots of people know you as apotter through your studio Wobe
and Sans Clay and, of course,from the television show the
Great Pottery Throwdown.
But it wasn't until you were inyour late 40s that you were
able to follow this creativepath.
We'll talk about what you weredoing before ceramics became
your thing, but before that,tell me about your childhood and
(02:30):
whether you had an artyupbringing.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Right, ok, claire.
So I had quite an unusualupbringing.
I had three sisters.
My father was an engineer, mymother was a midwife and my
father he worked for the spaceindustry intermittently, and so
it involved him moving aroundthe world.
So probably when I was eight ornine, we jumped aboard ship and
(02:55):
we traveled around the world.
We ended up in Australia wherewe stayed in Australia for about
four years, maybe a little bitlonger.
My father worked in Womera.
I was always very interested.
I was always painting andmaking.
I was the child that tookeverything apart and put it back
together, or mainly so, I thinkmy sisters realised that I was
(03:18):
quite arty.
I went through school.
I was OK at school.
I wasn't an A1 student, but Iwas OK.
I had an art teacher called MrsBrown who clearly thought that I
had something to offer, andwhen I was doing my O levels and
A levels at the time, I did thework for that.
(03:39):
What happened was Mrs Brown dida small exhibition for me and
from that I was offered a place,an art school and a small
bursary.
I went home and said hey, dad,look, you know, this is what's
happened.
I'm going to art school.
And he said no, you're not.
And you have to remember thatback in the 60s and 70s your
(04:04):
parents had a great influenceand my father being an
ex-military, being an engineer,my grandfather being an engineer
, I was a little bit controlled,I suppose, by my parents and I
can remember my father saying nolong-air students in my house,
no arty people.
I don't know what I'm missingabout you.
You're going to be an engineer,like me, and I've arranged some
(04:24):
interviews for you.
And I went, do you know what?
Fine, ok, and I wanted to tellMrs Brown, you know, clearly she
went.
Well, you know that's a shame,but you know.
And so I went into engineeringand I became an engineer, I did
an engineering apprenticeship, Iworked in the drawing office
and I moved around and I did itwholeheartedly and with pleasure
.
But I still dabbled with art.
(04:47):
I still, you know, made things,did a bit of painting.
So that was always there and itwas always a little bit strange
, because to be an engineer andto be an artist, that's that's
quite a conflict of areas.
And within my work, within myartwork, there was a lot of
accuracy.
Within my engineering workthere was a little bit of
(05:08):
flamboyance, so which used toget me in a little bit of
trouble.
I worked for several differentdesign companies and eventually
I started my own business andpurely off the hoof, somebody
came in.
The company was in Luton, inBedfordshire, and we're quite
near the motorway.
And this chap came off themotorway and he just, he just
(05:33):
stopped to the engineeringcompany, for whatever reason,
and asked us to do a small job.
That was my link to children'stoys.
He introduced himself and itwas a company that were linked
to Fisher Price and one or twoother companies and we started
making prototypes.
I was in my element then, so wehad the model shop and I ran
(05:57):
that particular part of it.
So I never sort of avoided theengineering side and I never
avoided the creative side.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Since you're working with toys, did you have some
creativity within that job?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Well, that's an interesting one, because it's
the nature of the beast, isn'tit?
I don't know if it's the natureof the beast, it's the nature
of me, where I would look atdrawings and I would interpret
the drawings, not necessarilyhow the toy designer would
envisage it.
But you also have to rememberwe didn't have computers.
Everything was done with paper,cellophane, fax machines.
(06:37):
So I suppose for me it wasgreat because I could deviate
from the origin and when I madethe models and everything I
could add, I could changecolours to primary colours and I
would look at the target agegroup and then go oh no, that's
not quite right.
Quite often I got away with it,which was quite good, because
(06:59):
it became a situation wherepeople began to rely on my
knowledge and the fact that Idid used to go a little bit
off-peace, not always, but a lotof the time.
We worked very well.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
So you mentioned that you were dabbling with your own
creativity at home as well.
During this time, what were youdoing?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Right.
So I love illustration.
So I did a lot of watercolorwork.
I did an illustration and I didone or two plants, the moulds
and plants, the models,basically for the engineering
side of it and also for the factthat I could creatively change
mould and adapt things as Iprogressed when it caused,
(07:44):
anything I drew or anything Ipainted went down into the
family.
And that still hasn't stopped.
You know, it still goes reallyquickly.
But it's about having value andI've never seen a great value
in my work.
I suppose my belief has alwaysbeen to share it.
I mean, I can't keep all thiswork, so it's great to go out to
(08:06):
friends and family.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I know that at that time you made your own wheel.
Tell me about the wheel thatyou made.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Well, that's a really interesting one, because what
happened was I had thisengineering company, I had a
nice house, I had a littleworkshop at the end of it and I
sort of got this interest inpottery.
I thought, you know, I'm goingto have a go at this, you see.
So remember, there was nointernet, there weren't a lot of
books about that explained it.
And so I thought, well, I'm anengineer, what I'll do is I'll
(08:37):
design and we'll make a potter'swheel and I'll call the
potter's wheel in my workshopand I'll throw pottery.
Now, I've never touched a bitof clay before in my life and
what I did was I made the wheel,I installed it, I bought a
cheap kiln and off I went.
So, you know, there are a fewmistakes, of course, but I was
(09:00):
producing work, I was makingpots quite successfully, and a
friend who was part of theengineering company that I had,
he'd been a pottery teacher longtime ago and he came out and he
was looking at my pots and hesaid oh, that is fantastic, you
know.
And he came one day I was on thepotter's wheel and he said what
(09:22):
are you doing?
What do you mean?
What are we doing?
And he said well, the wheel'sgoing the wrong way.
And he said the averagepotter's wheel does about 250
rpm.
And he said what's that onedoing?
I said 600.
And he said it's like watchingthings in fast forward.
And so we had this little chuck, and so then we changed
everything.
(09:42):
He stayed with me and he showedme the proper way to do it and
then off I went.
Then it was fine, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
How different is it to throw in the other direction?
If you'd been got used tothrowing in one direction, then
the wheel goes in the otherdirection.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
You know, that's like really strange because see,
what happens is I'm right-handed, so my left hand goes into the
pot, okay, and my right handsits out, and then you marry
like your two hands mirror eachother, so you would pinch the
clay.
You pinch the clay and draw theclay up toward the centre, but
(10:19):
when it's going the other way,of course your right hand is in
the pot and your left hand isoutside.
So you suddenly becomeambidextrous, but by default.
But I got used to it and ofcourse, it being so fast, I was
putting my hand in.
But what it meant was that whenthings went wrong, it went
wrong really, really badly,because at 600 plus RPM, if that
(10:42):
went a bit floppy, you know allthe walls had a bit.
I had a bit.
You know I was eating it, youknow I was wearing it, but it
was crazy, it was good fun.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Brilliant.
So you were 20 years or soworking in engineering, but how
did dabbling with clay turn intostudying ceramics at BA and MA
level, and do you think youfaced particular struggles at
university because you wereslightly older than the other
students?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Well, do you know what age, once again, is nothing
to do with this.
I've always been a characterwhere I've always got on well
with young people.
My grandchildren, you know mychildren think I'm worse than
their grandchildren.
I'm totally responsible.
I love a lot of and I think forme I had a change in my life.
(11:36):
The business was doing really,really well.
We were growing, the companywas growing.
I was spending all my time atwork, out of work, 24 seven.
It was nothing to do withearning money.
It's something in our psycheabout moving forward, about
being successful.
And of course that resulted inthe inevitable heart attack on
(12:01):
Christmas Eve, which was goodfun for the family.
So that sort of slowed me down.
But fortunately I didn't needsurgery, that they sorted it all
out and I was lying in hospitaland I was analyzing.
You can only do this in like anunknown situation, like
(12:22):
hospitalization, where you havea lot of time and a lot of
thought.
And I thought you know what?
I don't even like this bloke.
And I thought you know you'rebuilding this business.
You're sort of driving like aspeed rope through the water.
You know you're hurting people,you're just.
You know it's all aboutambition.
And I thought do you know what?
(12:43):
I'm not gonna do this anymore.
If I can get myself out of thissituation, this honest
situation, and get my head offthe bag, I'm gonna make a life
change.
And I didn't make a life changeand I still got the business
and I sort of virtually gave itaway at you.
I didn't make hardly any moneyon it, but we were secure enough
to carry on and I sort of Isuppose the term I bummed about
(13:09):
for a while, about six months.
You know nobody's going.
Oh, what are you gonna do?
I'll come down to my mother.
You know.
When I said, oh, got rid of thebusiness, and she went oh, okay
, what are you gonna do?
I don't know.
She goes oh, my, what, you knowwhat her mother's doing?
She put her palms card down andso I thought do you know what?
(13:30):
It was my younger sister,angela, who said look, you know
you're very passionate about art.
Why don't you do something togo into art?
Go that way.
And I thought do you know whatI'm making pots?
What I could do with it islooking at it a bit more in
depth, Sign it up at MiddlesexUniversity, and that's where I
did my BA with Honours and thenwent on and did an MA in
(13:54):
connection with Tableware, andthat's how it all came about,
really.
And then, but I joineduniversity and I joined with a
group of very young people butthey weren't all young and I
sort of decided at that timethat I'm quite okay with young
people, I'm not down in thegroove or anything like that,
(14:16):
but I, you know, I sort of Ithink I've got an empathy.
So it was okay.
I mean, I supported them, Icherished their young ideas, I
challenged some of thenon-conventional ideas and said
do you know, do you realize?
You know?
But I tried and tried at alltimes to avoid being a mother
hen.
So that worked quite well.
(14:37):
And then, of course, when Iwanted to do the MA, it was a
more mature based MA, so it wasa lot of written work and yeah.
So that's how it all came about.
And then I left university andthen bummed about it.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
So you didn't know what you wanted to do once the
studies were finished.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
No, irresponsible people call me, but it's not
that, it's you know what.
I still don't know what I wantto do in my life.
I really, really don't.
I'm still.
I'm really happy in developingmy skills, developing my
creative side.
But somebody said, you know, mymother was alive.
She said, you know, please,what are you doing?
I go, I don't know, mum.
(15:21):
You know, I'm just riding on,riding life, as it were, you
know, with my children and myfamily.
So yeah, so that's it really.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
But you did start teaching.
How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
The teaching thing.
How lovely was that.
So, okay, so I got some friendswho were teachers and they said
oh, could you bring your wheelinto school and do a couple of
days teaching?
And so they did all the checksand everything.
I went into these schools and Idid more than a couple of days.
(15:59):
There was there two or threeweeks at one school and the head
was involved in a couple ofthese lessons as well, just for
a bit of fun.
And then he said to me he saidyou know, you have to talk about
becoming a teacher and I don'tneed loads of all work.
And he said, no, it's reallyeasy, it's really straight
forward, you'll be very good.
So, well, there's not lots ofwork you've got no, no, no, no,
(16:20):
no, no.
Oh, I kind of killed it.
Well, of course, it's verydifficult.
You know, to become a teacheris quite hard.
You're running essays aboutPiaget and you know, on ethics
and all this, you think how didI get a voltimus?
Once that was all over when Igot into the classroom, then it
all clicked again.
That was something I found Ialso loved.
(16:42):
So then I had the ability toteach arm design, I taught a bit
of maths, I taught productdesign and then I taught
engineering, so I hadn't lookedlike a gambit, that sort of ran,
you know, with all the links.
You know I got involved withthis school in a big way.
I then changed schools.
I joined a school in MiddletonKeynes massive school at a
(17:06):
cohort at the time of nearly3000.
It was the largest school inEurope, had a lovely, lovely
ethos where the children came intheir own clothes.
They called you by your firstname, which was a little unusual
, but it worked.
It worked very, very well.
It had art college status.
I was head of visual arts, wehad a gallery, it was wonderful
(17:30):
and it was fantastic.
And I'm still teaching now.
I only do two days now but I doproduct design on a bit of art.
It's a beautiful school and youknow I love it.
I love the school and you knowthe students are lovely.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Brilliant, you know.
So, as well as teaching everyweek, there is also, of course,
wobensan's clay, which is verymuch a family affair.
How did you move from, as yousaid earlier, making pots for
friends to starting a potterybusiness?
And, if I may ask, how do youwork together with your family
(18:06):
without falling out?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I'll answer that one last.
Okay, so just before I wentonto the show I built a studio
and it's only three and a halfmeters by three and a half
meters.
It's a wooden studio, but Ibacked it onto the front of our
garage, so it's a modern house.
It's only been built 10 years,so it's like a cardboard box and
(18:30):
they put these garages up whereyou can get a motorbike in, but
you can't get a car in, whereyou can get it out.
You can get it in, but youcan't get out.
Yeah, so we got the studiogoing.
I then started making pottery.
I was making pottery, it wasprolific and I think you know I
was turning up to people'shouses and they were going oh
okay, hasn't got any potteryluck.
No, I'm sure they both.
(18:51):
But that's kind of how I feltand it sort of progressed from
there.
So so what happened was mydaughter, hannah, said look, you
know, we need to be sellingsome of this stuff.
That was the discussion on.
Then, of course, the greatpottery throwdown happened and
then that all changed, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
So presumably that's been good for business.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
It has.
Yes, as a finalist in the greatpottery throwdown, it's been
good.
I think people make anassociation that they like your
work with your name on it andit's like.
It's like the commissions thatI'm doing.
People are more interested ingetting the name, your name and
the date.
Of course they want beautifulpieces of work.
It's like a combination of theboth but, but what it has done
(19:38):
is, I mean through through mediaand the television, I'm a face
now and it's and it's bizarrebecause I'm recognized in in all
food shops.
I was when I'm shopping.
Yeah, the one thing was likeshopping, saying, oh, I'm in
Tesco.
And bizarrely, the other day acouple pulled up in a car and
(19:59):
they were asking for a streetthat's quite local to us and I
said, oh, yeah, I explainedwhere it is and then, right out
of the blue, even you're Peter,off the telly.
Oh, goodness me, it's Peter.
Oh, hello, we had this chat I'mtrying to get out, like they
blocked the driveway.
I know we're going to get allthe information out.
They could well.
That was absolutely lovely.
(20:19):
But then the other day I went tofill up a gas cylinder because
I need propane gas for my kiln,because I have a record and all
of a sudden, this, this, thislady at the Katie her name is,
she's lovely and she waschatting away and she was
smiling and you could see thatshe was going.
(20:41):
I'm trying to know.
And one of the lads from theyard came up and said no, that
is don't you.
And she went.
We went Peter, peter, peter thepotter, and I said you know,
she's got a piece of ruffetelhere.
I went yes, yeah, I know, it'slovely, it's absolutely adorable
, you know.
(21:02):
So you're avoiding the questionabout working with family, then
oh, yes, I knew I was going togo back to that.
It's like working with family.
Okay, so I have a fantasticfamily.
We're a big family about 10grandchildren.
But my daughter, who you'vespoken to, hannah, she does all
the social media.
(21:22):
She does all the website.
She's absolutely fabulous.
She does all that Gell does, mywife does I like all the
packaging does all theorganisation.
She runs a very busy house.
She looks after thegrandchildren, she looks after
everybody.
She has a massive job.
She's head of a design facultyat school.
(21:44):
When I work, of course we haveour.
You know, I have my methods.
Not everybody's the same, sothat was a little bit of
friction, but on the main it'spretty good and we can always
sort of discuss it as familiesdiscuss things, if you could
imagine.
I mean, I know I always lose,but you know it's been very good
(22:07):
.
I've been amazed by how lovelyit is.
We have a photographer andfamily.
So he comes in and he does thephotography, takes her up, edits
it.
What's your bet, hannah?
She does all the the.
You know the final editingwe've put on the website.
That's brilliant and I just gotto produce.
So what I have is I've got afriend called Bob who when I was
(22:31):
at school, when I was head ofvisual arts, I met him and he
used to service our kylons atschool.
When I started the studio Icontacted Bob and said you know,
if you hear of any kylons going, can you let me know?
And the way schools are aboutbeing creative, we're in a
situation where schools try toget rid of that kind of stuff.
So I managed to buy twosecond-hand kylons, big electric
(22:53):
kylons that went into thegarage, so they don't I'm not
quite an extra actor and theydon't interfere at all with the
production area, with the wheelsand my teaching area.
Then we decided to look atdoing recoup work.
Just experimenting with recoup.
I got a galvanised dustbin andI fibled it and I made all the
(23:14):
burners and everything and Imade a recoup kylon and that's
you know, and it's good fun.
Oh, my goodness, you smell likea bonfire.
It's not very romantic, youknow.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Did you do that before the show?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
The recoup.
No, that came afterwards, yeahyeah, because we didn't make it
recoup on one of the episodesand we thought, oh, this is like
good fun, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, brilliant, Awesome, thank you.
You are 70 years old and I knowyou are busier than ever.
What keeps you going?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
You know, claire, I'm not 70 in my head, you know, my
body is 70, and I get up somemornings and go oh what could
this be what's happening?
But when I get going I'm fine.
I'm a great believer inprogress.
Ages only a number.
I keep that motivation going.
It's like I was saying earlierthat I don't know what I want to
(24:10):
do.
I still don't know what Ishould be doing in my life.
So I continually progress, youknow, and I make unusual lights,
I skip dive, and so I make andcreate anything that I can.
It's only the fact that the bodyis a little bit rusty now, but
the engine, the engine's got100,000 miles on it and that's
(24:33):
what I believe.
We should all be wherever wepossibly can.
We've all got something in it,suddenly, something more than
you know.
I'm retiring now.
I rest up.
No, you don't Get out there,get walking, look at the world,
you know, stop mowing in therefor a go, you know, and you can
up, go really cheap.
But, you know, buy a 2B penciland a drawing pad, go for a walk
(24:56):
and draw what you see.
Nobody there to judge you orany.
You, you know, just a good time.
Anybody that's self-motivatedcan do it, get out and have a go
.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Perfect.
I know that you still like toexperiment with your clays and
your glazes.
I also know that you havecommissions and you have work to
do for the website.
How do you figure it all intoyour time that you can do the
stuff that needs to be done andyou can still have your creative
(25:29):
experiment?
Are you a super duper timemanagement person or do you go
with the flow?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I have very good time management.
I tend to plan a couple of daysahead.
Things like commissions,commissions, are really, really
important.
They're important to me, very,very important to the person
that I should have done thecommission.
So it has to take priority thepeople that you're working for
personally.
It has to take priority and youjust sort of fit everything
(25:59):
else in around it, and that'swhy I'm considering retiring
from school and giving the fullseven days to work on.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
But you can still balance the enjoyment and the
creativity and the passion forthe craft.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
You have to have a passion for the craft.
Colleging is one of thosethings where the creativity
evolves, because it changes andyou can develop that creativity
as you're moulding it.
So you may start out with oneidea but then, as you're going,
oh, I can try that, and it movesalong.
And the great thing aboutceramics and clay is the
(26:41):
combination.
It's experimenting with thescience of clay, experimenting
with the science of glazes onlustres and the koo glazes.
That's all exciting, it's allmoving along, but it all has to
be fitted in.
So you sort of have to giveyourself a sort of a mini time
check.
I have whiteboards in thestudio and in the office where I
(27:06):
sort of do a plan, and then, ofcourse, my life gel and my
daughter Hannah they pop thingsin.
We're going to do this and youneed to have that done by then.
And, by the way, we're going todo a TikTok this afternoon.
More cameras.
I hate cameras, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
So how do you feel when you create something new
and you show it, whether to yourfamily or the wider public, by
which I mean have you foundconfidence, or are you nervous
about sharing what you've made?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
You know that that's quite interesting.
It's a really interestingquestion and it works a bit like
this.
I think prior to being on athrowdown, I Didn't quite have
that confidence.
I'm not a very confident person, anyway, really, about the
things that I do and I thinkthat, but anybody will tell you
I haven't yet found anything Ireally, really like.
(28:07):
I'm really super critical, likeyou know, friends of family
going you're kidding, it'sactually beautiful, I love,
that's fantastic, but I'm alwaysstriving for the next thing and
I don't.
I don't know if that next thingactually exists.
I'm doing this really, reallybig commission for some friends
(28:27):
of ours their anniversary, andhad a couple of attempts because
I had one blow up in the queueand so I did the second one
yesterday and that wassatisfying.
It's nearly 700 millimetershigh and I thrown it on the
wheel in two parts and I sort oflooked at that and Joe came in
last night, hannah and they werelooking at you know it's not
(28:50):
quite the shape she's asked for,so I thought, no, but I'm
modify it.
So well, it's on me, sort thismorning I'm modified it, I've
got it all back.
I thought, yeah, you know I'vegot to get it through to farings
.
But you know, yeah, so I'mgetting more comfortable,
definitely, and my throwingskills are developing as well,
(29:10):
which is good.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Brilliant, so you're back home now.
Throw down is over, back tosome kind of normality possibly.
What are your plans for thefuture?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
My plans for the future are, apart from going on
holiday Crazy times, my plansfor the future is to continue
developing the business.
I want to open the studio up toPeople coming in want to learn
a new skill.
I'm gonna offer drawingworkshops, painting workshops,
(29:45):
mainly pottery workshops.
So the workshop will take twopeople and I suppose I'm not
looking for people to join methat have Great pottery
knowledge and I just look ifyou're a work workshop to use.
I'm looking for those peoplethat want to be inspired, young
or old.
Like I say, we've gotdisabilities in the family and
(30:05):
that's great to work with them.
You know, let them make.
So you know I want to carry onwith that.
I'm also I want to develop myportfolio.
I want to.
You know, there is a very, veryserious side to me and I would
like to Get my work into somegalleries.
I Mean my work is.
(30:26):
This is reasonably priced.
I think it's very important foreverybody to share you know I'm
not looking for fame oranything like that, worth, I
suppose and to share that ideaand to share that creativity.
To share that.
You know, madness, it's me.
You know I watched this thinglast night about Geo-Kometi and
(30:48):
I thought, yeah, it's very muchlike they.
You know both a couple oflunatics, but in a nice way, you
know.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Brilliant Peter.
How can people connect with you?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Okay, well, there's a couple of ways of getting in
touch with me.
Go to the website, which is allbrand new, it's all fantastic
wwwwoabonsansclaycom.
You can see all my work byputting everything up there and
you can contact me through.
There's a contact page, andplease do.
Or Instagram at wovenunderscore, sans underscore clay
(31:23):
.
And then Facebook of woven sansclay, please, you know any
information writing, or Insta in, or whatever it is, or Facebook
in I'm an open book, oh.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
That's fantastic.
Thank you ever so much, peter.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Thank you, claire, I love your time, thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Listening to the next episode to hear all about
Peter's experiences on the greatpottery throwdown.
Thanks so much for listening tocreativity found.
If your podcast app has thefacility, please leave a rating
and review.
To help other people find us onInstagram and Facebook, follow
act creativity found podcast andon Pinterest, look for act
(32:06):
creativity found.
And Finally, don't forget tocheck out creativity found dot.
Co dot UK, the websiteconnecting adults who want to
find a creative outlet with theartists and crafters who can
help them tap into theircreativity.
My guest for this episode is a member of the
Creativity Found Collective, apromotional and networking
membership for artists andcrafters who share their
creative skills with grown-upsthrough workshops, online
courses, products and kits.
There's a link to their page atcreativityfoundcouk and if you,
too, would like to join us,visit creativityfoundcouk.
(00:24):
Slash, join us.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Do you know what?
I'm not going to do thisanymore.
I can get myself out of thissituation and get my head off
that.
I'm going to make a life change.
Irresponsible people call me.
Collective is one of thosethings where the creativity
evolves because it changes Onmen.
(00:53):
Of course, the great potterythrowdown happened On men.
They're all changed.
Anybody that's self-motivatedcan do it.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Hi, I'm Claire, founder of Open Stage Arts Drama
and Singing classes for adults.
Lots of the adults who come toour classes and online events
are looking for a creativitythat has been put on the back
burner during their sensiblegrown-up years.
I have found this to be trueamong other creatives, too, so
I've decided to find out moreabout the painters,
(01:27):
photographers, writers,printmakers, actors, crafters,
teachers, musicians and morethat have found or re-found
their creativity later in life.
Today, I'm speaking with PeterWhite, who began studying for a
BA in ceramics in his late 40sand, in 2021, was a finalist on
(01:49):
TV's the Great Pottery Throwdown.
He has had an interesting andemotional journey in life and on
the show, and is passionateabout inspiring others to tap
into their own creativity, nomatter what their age.
Hi, peter.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Hello Claire, lovely to meet you again.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
And you.
Lots of people know you as apotter through your studio Wobe
and Sans Clay and, of course,from the television show the
Great Pottery Throwdown.
But it wasn't until you were inyour late 40s that you were
able to follow this creativepath.
We'll talk about what you weredoing before ceramics became
your thing, but before that,tell me about your childhood and
(02:30):
whether you had an artyupbringing.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Right, ok, claire.
So I had quite an unusualupbringing.
I had three sisters.
My father was an engineer, mymother was a midwife and my
father he worked for the spaceindustry intermittently, and so
it involved him moving aroundthe world.
So probably when I was eight ornine, we jumped aboard ship and
(02:55):
we traveled around the world.
We ended up in Australia wherewe stayed in Australia for about
four years, maybe a little bitlonger.
My father worked in Womera.
I was always very interested.
I was always painting andmaking.
I was the child that tookeverything apart and put it back
together, or mainly so, I thinkmy sisters realised that I was
(03:18):
quite arty.
I went through school.
I was OK at school.
I wasn't an A1 student, but Iwas OK.
I had an art teacher called MrsBrown who clearly thought that I
had something to offer, andwhen I was doing my O levels and
A levels at the time, I did thework for that.
(03:39):
What happened was Mrs Brown dida small exhibition for me and
from that I was offered a place,an art school and a small
bursary.
I went home and said hey, dad,look, you know, this is what's
happened.
I'm going to art school.
And he said no, you're not.
And you have to remember thatback in the 60s and 70s your
(04:04):
parents had a great influenceand my father being an
ex-military, being an engineer,my grandfather being an engineer
, I was a little bit controlled,I suppose, by my parents and I
can remember my father saying nolong-air students in my house,
no arty people.
I don't know what I'm missingabout you.
You're going to be an engineer,like me, and I've arranged some
(04:24):
interviews for you.
And I went, do you know what?
Fine, ok, and I wanted to tellMrs Brown, you know, clearly she
went.
Well, you know that's a shame,but you know.
And so I went into engineeringand I became an engineer, I did
an engineering apprenticeship, Iworked in the drawing office
and I moved around and I did itwholeheartedly and with pleasure
.
But I still dabbled with art.
(04:47):
I still, you know, made things,did a bit of painting.
So that was always there and itwas always a little bit strange
, because to be an engineer andto be an artist, that's that's
quite a conflict of areas.
And within my work, within myartwork, there was a lot of
accuracy.
Within my engineering workthere was a little bit of
(05:08):
flamboyance, so which used toget me in a little bit of
trouble.
I worked for several differentdesign companies and eventually
I started my own business andpurely off the hoof, somebody
came in.
The company was in Luton, inBedfordshire, and we're quite
near the motorway.
And this chap came off themotorway and he just, he just
(05:33):
stopped to the engineeringcompany, for whatever reason,
and asked us to do a small job.
That was my link to children'stoys.
He introduced himself and itwas a company that were linked
to Fisher Price and one or twoother companies and we started
making prototypes.
I was in my element then, so wehad the model shop and I ran
(05:57):
that particular part of it.
So I never sort of avoided theengineering side and I never
avoided the creative side.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Since you're working with toys, did you have some
creativity within that job?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Well, that's an interesting one, because it's
the nature of the beast, isn'tit?
I don't know if it's the natureof the beast, it's the nature
of me, where I would look atdrawings and I would interpret
the drawings, not necessarilyhow the toy designer would
envisage it.
But you also have to rememberwe didn't have computers.
Everything was done with paper,cellophane, fax machines.
(06:37):
So I suppose for me it wasgreat because I could deviate
from the origin and when I madethe models and everything I
could add, I could changecolours to primary colours and I
would look at the target agegroup and then go oh no, that's
not quite right.
Quite often I got away with it,which was quite good, because
(06:59):
it became a situation wherepeople began to rely on my
knowledge and the fact that Idid used to go a little bit
off-peace, not always, but a lotof the time.
We worked very well.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
So you mentioned that you were dabbling with your own
creativity at home as well.
During this time, what were youdoing?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Right.
So I love illustration.
So I did a lot of watercolorwork.
I did an illustration and I didone or two plants, the moulds
and plants, the models,basically for the engineering
side of it and also for the factthat I could creatively change
mould and adapt things as Iprogressed when it caused,
(07:44):
anything I drew or anything Ipainted went down into the
family.
And that still hasn't stopped.
You know, it still goes reallyquickly.
But it's about having value andI've never seen a great value
in my work.
I suppose my belief has alwaysbeen to share it.
I mean, I can't keep all thiswork, so it's great to go out to
(08:06):
friends and family.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I know that at that time you made your own wheel.
Tell me about the wheel thatyou made.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Well, that's a really interesting one, because what
happened was I had thisengineering company, I had a
nice house, I had a littleworkshop at the end of it and I
sort of got this interest inpottery.
I thought, you know, I'm goingto have a go at this, you see.
So remember, there was nointernet, there weren't a lot of
books about that explained it.
And so I thought, well, I'm anengineer, what I'll do is I'll
(08:37):
design and we'll make a potter'swheel and I'll call the
potter's wheel in my workshopand I'll throw pottery.
Now, I've never touched a bitof clay before in my life and
what I did was I made the wheel,I installed it, I bought a
cheap kiln and off I went.
So, you know, there are a fewmistakes, of course, but I was
(09:00):
producing work, I was makingpots quite successfully, and a
friend who was part of theengineering company that I had,
he'd been a pottery teacher longtime ago and he came out and he
was looking at my pots and hesaid oh, that is fantastic, you
know.
And he came one day I was on thepotter's wheel and he said what
(09:22):
are you doing?
What do you mean?
What are we doing?
And he said well, the wheel'sgoing the wrong way.
And he said the averagepotter's wheel does about 250
rpm.
And he said what's that onedoing?
I said 600.
And he said it's like watchingthings in fast forward.
And so we had this little chuck, and so then we changed
everything.
(09:42):
He stayed with me and he showedme the proper way to do it and
then off I went.
Then it was fine, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
How different is it to throw in the other direction?
If you'd been got used tothrowing in one direction, then
the wheel goes in the otherdirection.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
You know, that's like really strange because see,
what happens is I'm right-handed, so my left hand goes into the
pot, okay, and my right handsits out, and then you marry
like your two hands mirror eachother, so you would pinch the
clay.
You pinch the clay and draw theclay up toward the centre, but
(10:19):
when it's going the other way,of course your right hand is in
the pot and your left hand isoutside.
So you suddenly becomeambidextrous, but by default.
But I got used to it and ofcourse, it being so fast, I was
putting my hand in.
But what it meant was that whenthings went wrong, it went
wrong really, really badly,because at 600 plus RPM, if that
(10:42):
went a bit floppy, you know allthe walls had a bit.
I had a bit.
You know I was eating it, youknow I was wearing it, but it
was crazy, it was good fun.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Brilliant.
So you were 20 years or soworking in engineering, but how
did dabbling with clay turn intostudying ceramics at BA and MA
level, and do you think youfaced particular struggles at
university because you wereslightly older than the other
students?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Well, do you know what age, once again, is nothing
to do with this.
I've always been a characterwhere I've always got on well
with young people.
My grandchildren, you know mychildren think I'm worse than
their grandchildren.
I'm totally responsible.
I love a lot of and I think forme I had a change in my life.
(11:36):
The business was doing really,really well.
We were growing, the companywas growing.
I was spending all my time atwork, out of work, 24 seven.
It was nothing to do withearning money.
It's something in our psycheabout moving forward, about
being successful.
And of course that resulted inthe inevitable heart attack on
(12:01):
Christmas Eve, which was goodfun for the family.
So that sort of slowed me down.
But fortunately I didn't needsurgery, that they sorted it all
out and I was lying in hospitaland I was analyzing.
You can only do this in like anunknown situation, like
(12:22):
hospitalization, where you havea lot of time and a lot of
thought.
And I thought you know what?
I don't even like this bloke.
And I thought you know you'rebuilding this business.
You're sort of driving like aspeed rope through the water.
You know you're hurting people,you're just.
You know it's all aboutambition.
And I thought do you know what?
(12:43):
I'm not gonna do this anymore.
If I can get myself out of thissituation, this honest
situation, and get my head offthe bag, I'm gonna make a life
change.
And I didn't make a life changeand I still got the business
and I sort of virtually gave itaway at you.
I didn't make hardly any moneyon it, but we were secure enough
to carry on and I sort of Isuppose the term I bummed about
(13:09):
for a while, about six months.
You know nobody's going.
Oh, what are you gonna do?
I'll come down to my mother.
You know.
When I said, oh, got rid of thebusiness, and she went oh, okay
, what are you gonna do?
I don't know.
She goes oh, my, what, you knowwhat her mother's doing?
She put her palms card down andso I thought do you know what?
(13:30):
It was my younger sister,angela, who said look, you know
you're very passionate about art.
Why don't you do something togo into art?
Go that way.
And I thought do you know whatI'm making pots?
What I could do with it islooking at it a bit more in
depth, Sign it up at MiddlesexUniversity, and that's where I
did my BA with Honours and thenwent on and did an MA in
(13:54):
connection with Tableware, andthat's how it all came about,
really.
And then, but I joineduniversity and I joined with a
group of very young people butthey weren't all young and I
sort of decided at that timethat I'm quite okay with young
people, I'm not down in thegroove or anything like that,
(14:16):
but I, you know, I sort of Ithink I've got an empathy.
So it was okay.
I mean, I supported them, Icherished their young ideas, I
challenged some of thenon-conventional ideas and said
do you know, do you realize?
You know?
But I tried and tried at alltimes to avoid being a mother
hen.
So that worked quite well.
(14:37):
And then, of course, when Iwanted to do the MA, it was a
more mature based MA, so it wasa lot of written work and yeah.
So that's how it all came about.
And then I left university andthen bummed about it.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
So you didn't know what you wanted to do once the
studies were finished.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
No, irresponsible people call me, but it's not
that, it's you know what.
I still don't know what I wantto do in my life.
I really, really don't.
I'm still.
I'm really happy in developingmy skills, developing my
creative side.
But somebody said, you know, mymother was alive.
She said, you know, please,what are you doing?
I go, I don't know, mum.
(15:21):
You know, I'm just riding on,riding life, as it were, you
know, with my children and myfamily.
So yeah, so that's it really.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
But you did start teaching.
How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
The teaching thing.
How lovely was that.
So, okay, so I got some friendswho were teachers and they said
oh, could you bring your wheelinto school and do a couple of
days teaching?
And so they did all the checksand everything.
I went into these schools and Idid more than a couple of days.
(15:59):
There was there two or threeweeks at one school and the head
was involved in a couple ofthese lessons as well, just for
a bit of fun.
And then he said to me he saidyou know, you have to talk about
becoming a teacher and I don'tneed loads of all work.
And he said, no, it's reallyeasy, it's really straight
forward, you'll be very good.
So, well, there's not lots ofwork you've got no, no, no, no,
(16:20):
no, no.
Oh, I kind of killed it.
Well, of course, it's verydifficult.
You know, to become a teacheris quite hard.
You're running essays aboutPiaget and you know, on ethics
and all this, you think how didI get a voltimus?
Once that was all over when Igot into the classroom, then it
all clicked again.
That was something I found Ialso loved.
(16:42):
So then I had the ability toteach arm design, I taught a bit
of maths, I taught productdesign and then I taught
engineering, so I hadn't lookedlike a gambit, that sort of ran,
you know, with all the links.
You know I got involved withthis school in a big way.
I then changed schools.
I joined a school in MiddletonKeynes massive school at a
(17:06):
cohort at the time of nearly3000.
It was the largest school inEurope, had a lovely, lovely
ethos where the children came intheir own clothes.
They called you by your firstname, which was a little unusual
, but it worked.
It worked very, very well.
It had art college status.
I was head of visual arts, wehad a gallery, it was wonderful
(17:30):
and it was fantastic.
And I'm still teaching now.
I only do two days now but I doproduct design on a bit of art.
It's a beautiful school and youknow I love it.
I love the school and you knowthe students are lovely.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Brilliant, you know.
So, as well as teaching everyweek, there is also, of course,
wobensan's clay, which is verymuch a family affair.
How did you move from, as yousaid earlier, making pots for
friends to starting a potterybusiness?
And, if I may ask, how do youwork together with your family
(18:06):
without falling out?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I'll answer that one last.
Okay, so just before I wentonto the show I built a studio
and it's only three and a halfmeters by three and a half
meters.
It's a wooden studio, but Ibacked it onto the front of our
garage, so it's a modern house.
It's only been built 10 years,so it's like a cardboard box and
(18:30):
they put these garages up whereyou can get a motorbike in, but
you can't get a car in, whereyou can get it out.
You can get it in, but youcan't get out.
Yeah, so we got the studiogoing.
I then started making pottery.
I was making pottery, it wasprolific and I think you know I
was turning up to people'shouses and they were going oh
okay, hasn't got any potteryluck.
No, I'm sure they both.
(18:51):
But that's kind of how I feltand it sort of progressed from
there.
So so what happened was mydaughter, hannah, said look, you
know, we need to be sellingsome of this stuff.
That was the discussion on.
Then, of course, the greatpottery throwdown happened and
then that all changed, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
So presumably that's been good for business.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
It has.
Yes, as a finalist in the greatpottery throwdown, it's been
good.
I think people make anassociation that they like your
work with your name on it andit's like.
It's like the commissions thatI'm doing.
People are more interested ingetting the name, your name and
the date.
Of course they want beautifulpieces of work.
It's like a combination of theboth but, but what it has done
(19:38):
is, I mean through through mediaand the television, I'm a face
now and it's and it's bizarrebecause I'm recognized in in all
food shops.
I was when I'm shopping.
Yeah, the one thing was likeshopping, saying, oh, I'm in
Tesco.
And bizarrely, the other day acouple pulled up in a car and
(19:59):
they were asking for a streetthat's quite local to us and I
said, oh, yeah, I explainedwhere it is and then, right out
of the blue, even you're Peter,off the telly.
Oh, goodness me, it's Peter.
Oh, hello, we had this chat I'mtrying to get out, like they
blocked the driveway.
I know we're going to get allthe information out.
They could well.
That was absolutely lovely.
(20:19):
But then the other day I went tofill up a gas cylinder because
I need propane gas for my kiln,because I have a record and all
of a sudden, this, this, thislady at the Katie her name is,
she's lovely and she waschatting away and she was
smiling and you could see thatshe was going.
(20:41):
I'm trying to know.
And one of the lads from theyard came up and said no, that
is don't you.
And she went.
We went Peter, peter, peter thepotter, and I said you know,
she's got a piece of ruffetelhere.
I went yes, yeah, I know, it'slovely, it's absolutely adorable
, you know.
(21:02):
So you're avoiding the questionabout working with family, then
oh, yes, I knew I was going togo back to that.
It's like working with family.
Okay, so I have a fantasticfamily.
We're a big family about 10grandchildren.
But my daughter, who you'vespoken to, hannah, she does all
the social media.
(21:22):
She does all the website.
She's absolutely fabulous.
She does all that Gell does, mywife does I like all the
packaging does all theorganisation.
She runs a very busy house.
She looks after thegrandchildren, she looks after
everybody.
She has a massive job.
She's head of a design facultyat school.
(21:44):
When I work, of course we haveour.
You know, I have my methods.
Not everybody's the same, sothat was a little bit of
friction, but on the main it'spretty good and we can always
sort of discuss it as familiesdiscuss things, if you could
imagine.
I mean, I know I always lose,but you know it's been very good
(22:07):
.
I've been amazed by how lovelyit is.
We have a photographer andfamily.
So he comes in and he does thephotography, takes her up, edits
it.
What's your bet, hannah?
She does all the the.
You know the final editingwe've put on the website.
That's brilliant and I just gotto produce.
So what I have is I've got afriend called Bob who when I was
(22:31):
at school, when I was head ofvisual arts, I met him and he
used to service our kylons atschool.
When I started the studio Icontacted Bob and said you know,
if you hear of any kylons going, can you let me know?
And the way schools are aboutbeing creative, we're in a
situation where schools try toget rid of that kind of stuff.
So I managed to buy twosecond-hand kylons, big electric
(22:53):
kylons that went into thegarage, so they don't I'm not
quite an extra actor and theydon't interfere at all with the
production area, with the wheelsand my teaching area.
Then we decided to look atdoing recoup work.
Just experimenting with recoup.
I got a galvanised dustbin andI fibled it and I made all the
(23:14):
burners and everything and Imade a recoup kylon and that's
you know, and it's good fun.
Oh, my goodness, you smell likea bonfire.
It's not very romantic, youknow.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Did you do that before the show?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
The recoup.
No, that came afterwards, yeahyeah, because we didn't make it
recoup on one of the episodesand we thought, oh, this is like
good fun, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, brilliant, Awesome, thank you.
You are 70 years old and I knowyou are busier than ever.
What keeps you going?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
You know, claire, I'm not 70 in my head, you know, my
body is 70, and I get up somemornings and go oh what could
this be what's happening?
But when I get going I'm fine.
I'm a great believer inprogress.
Ages only a number.
I keep that motivation going.
It's like I was saying earlierthat I don't know what I want to
(24:10):
do.
I still don't know what Ishould be doing in my life.
So I continually progress, youknow, and I make unusual lights,
I skip dive, and so I make andcreate anything that I can.
It's only the fact that the bodyis a little bit rusty now, but
the engine, the engine's got100,000 miles on it and that's
(24:33):
what I believe.
We should all be wherever wepossibly can.
We've all got something in it,suddenly, something more than
you know.
I'm retiring now.
I rest up.
No, you don't Get out there,get walking, look at the world,
you know, stop mowing in therefor a go, you know, and you can
up, go really cheap.
But, you know, buy a 2B penciland a drawing pad, go for a walk
(24:56):
and draw what you see.
Nobody there to judge you orany.
You, you know, just a good time.
Anybody that's self-motivatedcan do it, get out and have a go
.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Perfect.
I know that you still like toexperiment with your clays and
your glazes.
I also know that you havecommissions and you have work to
do for the website.
How do you figure it all intoyour time that you can do the
stuff that needs to be done andyou can still have your creative
(25:29):
experiment?
Are you a super duper timemanagement person or do you go
with the flow?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I have very good time management.
I tend to plan a couple of daysahead.
Things like commissions,commissions, are really, really
important.
They're important to me, very,very important to the person
that I should have done thecommission.
So it has to take priority thepeople that you're working for
personally.
It has to take priority and youjust sort of fit everything
(25:59):
else in around it, and that'swhy I'm considering retiring
from school and giving the fullseven days to work on.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
But you can still balance the enjoyment and the
creativity and the passion forthe craft.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
You have to have a passion for the craft.
Colleging is one of thosethings where the creativity
evolves, because it changes andyou can develop that creativity
as you're moulding it.
So you may start out with oneidea but then, as you're going,
oh, I can try that, and it movesalong.
And the great thing aboutceramics and clay is the
(26:41):
combination.
It's experimenting with thescience of clay, experimenting
with the science of glazes onlustres and the koo glazes.
That's all exciting, it's allmoving along, but it all has to
be fitted in.
So you sort of have to giveyourself a sort of a mini time
check.
I have whiteboards in thestudio and in the office where I
(27:06):
sort of do a plan, and then, ofcourse, my life gel and my
daughter Hannah they pop thingsin.
We're going to do this and youneed to have that done by then.
And, by the way, we're going todo a TikTok this afternoon.
More cameras.
I hate cameras, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
So how do you feel when you create something new
and you show it, whether to yourfamily or the wider public, by
which I mean have you foundconfidence, or are you nervous
about sharing what you've made?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
You know that that's quite interesting.
It's a really interestingquestion and it works a bit like
this.
I think prior to being on athrowdown, I Didn't quite have
that confidence.
I'm not a very confident person, anyway, really, about the
things that I do and I thinkthat, but anybody will tell you
I haven't yet found anything Ireally, really like.
(28:07):
I'm really super critical, likeyou know, friends of family
going you're kidding, it'sactually beautiful, I love,
that's fantastic, but I'm alwaysstriving for the next thing and
I don't.
I don't know if that next thingactually exists.
I'm doing this really, reallybig commission for some friends
(28:27):
of ours their anniversary, andhad a couple of attempts because
I had one blow up in the queueand so I did the second one
yesterday and that wassatisfying.
It's nearly 700 millimetershigh and I thrown it on the
wheel in two parts and I sort oflooked at that and Joe came in
last night, hannah and they werelooking at you know it's not
(28:50):
quite the shape she's asked for,so I thought, no, but I'm
modify it.
So well, it's on me, sort thismorning I'm modified it, I've
got it all back.
I thought, yeah, you know I'vegot to get it through to farings
.
But you know, yeah, so I'mgetting more comfortable,
definitely, and my throwingskills are developing as well,
(29:10):
which is good.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Brilliant, so you're back home now.
Throw down is over, back tosome kind of normality possibly.
What are your plans for thefuture?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
My plans for the future are, apart from going on
holiday Crazy times, my plansfor the future is to continue
developing the business.
I want to open the studio up toPeople coming in want to learn
a new skill.
I'm gonna offer drawingworkshops, painting workshops,
(29:45):
mainly pottery workshops.
So the workshop will take twopeople and I suppose I'm not
looking for people to join methat have Great pottery
knowledge and I just look ifyou're a work workshop to use.
I'm looking for those peoplethat want to be inspired, young
or old.
Like I say, we've gotdisabilities in the family and
(30:05):
that's great to work with them.
You know, let them make.
So you know I want to carry onwith that.
I'm also I want to develop myportfolio.
I want to.
You know, there is a very, veryserious side to me and I would
like to Get my work into somegalleries.
I Mean my work is.
(30:26):
This is reasonably priced.
I think it's very important foreverybody to share you know I'm
not looking for fame oranything like that, worth, I
suppose and to share that ideaand to share that creativity.
To share that.
You know, madness, it's me.
You know I watched this thinglast night about Geo-Kometi and
(30:48):
I thought, yeah, it's very muchlike they.
You know both a couple oflunatics, but in a nice way, you
know.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Brilliant Peter.
How can people connect with you?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Okay, well, there's a couple of ways of getting in
touch with me.
Go to the website, which is allbrand new, it's all fantastic
wwwwoabonsansclaycom.
You can see all my work byputting everything up there and
you can contact me through.
There's a contact page, andplease do.
Or Instagram at wovenunderscore, sans underscore clay
(31:23):
.
And then Facebook of woven sansclay, please, you know any
information writing, or Insta in, or whatever it is, or Facebook
in I'm an open book, oh.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
That's fantastic.
Thank you ever so much, peter.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Thank you, claire, I love your time, thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Listening to the next episode to hear all about
Peter's experiences on the greatpottery throwdown.
Thanks so much for listening tocreativity found.
If your podcast app has thefacility, please leave a rating
and review.
To help other people find us onInstagram and Facebook, follow
act creativity found podcast andon Pinterest, look for act
(32:06):
creativity found.
And Finally, don't forget tocheck out creativity found dot.
Co dot UK, the websiteconnecting adults who want to
find a creative outlet with theartists and crafters who can
help them tap into theircreativity.
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