Abigail Schama welcomed Flow’s Alina Young and Isobel Napier into her North-West London studio; a lively creative space that Schama co-founded, where resident ceramicists are joined by a photographer, a writer and evening class students. Schama’s ceramic works from past exhibitions are displayed across the studio – an environment she calls her “sketchbook”. She sits down with Alina Young to discuss her approach to making and her intuitive process.

“I came to ceramics from a background in painting, so that the body and form of clay is another surface for making marks and cultivating textures. Unlike a painting, a pot has no front or back, but one can reach inside it, respond to the human impulse to touch and handle it.”

Interview and text by Alina Young; Studio Photography by Isobel Napier.

Since she began working with clay, Schama has been drawn to functional forms. Schama chooses to create vessels for their connection to domesticity – as commonplace objects, bowls, jugs or vases carry immediate associations that she enjoys playing with:

“From my first pieces, there was a discussion about functionality and non-functionality. I’ve always worked with vessels because the starting point is familiarity; then, you can move away from it in a way that challenges people. You can only challenge if you start with what people know, and what they know is – jug, bowl, plate. And then – it’s still a jug – it absolutely functions, but it’s dancing. She would still do the job, but I’m teasing a little bit, playing with your expectations and what you’re comfortable with. Comfort is the opposite of art.”

The bodies of her vessels become her canvas for textured, highly expressive surfaces. Schama first trained as a fine art painter, which continues to inspire her.

“I can’t help it – I love painting. I am not satisfied with just a perfect skin that’s flat, it won’t necessarily do it for me. So, I will keep trying to eke out something, as though I was painting it. Even when I was painting, I was uncovering rather than covering. So I still approach it that way.”

There is no set tool, glaze or technique that Schama uses to achieve these effects. “I’ll use anything,” she explains:

“I’m quite relaxed to be playful, see what happens. I’m not a chemically-minded or calculated kind of maker, and I don’t really want to be because I like the element of surprise. I like to see how something really did work on some pots, whilst on others it didn’t – so I’ll pick it up again and make it happen. In terms of colour, paint, and mark-making, I’m persistent. But also the beauty of ceramics is that you have to surrender if something doesn’t work.”

The element of surprise also applies to the clay body. Schama regularly throws with a reclaimed clay mixture, composed of an unknown combination of clays that she and the studio’s other makers are using – including stoneware, porcelain, terracotta, black and red clays. The complexion of each piece therefore represents a snapshot of a period in time, remaining unpredictable and unique.

“I’ve been using the reclaimed clay since we moved in. It’s often thrown away, so once we opened this studio I resolved to make it my business to reclaim and use it. I want to show how it’s not rubbish or redundant. There are many challenges with it; it took me time to figure out that, due to the different clays and whatever impurities are in it, you have to fire at a much lower temperature than you expect so that it doesn’t blister. The second thing is the colour – when you throw with it, it’s the most spectacular pink, but generally comes out sandy. But even when I’m not using the reclaimed clay, I never use just straight up stoneware on its own. I use black, I use red, I use grey. I go between them intuitively.”

The diverse results of her experimentation gives enormous individuality to each pot; her studio’s display showcases how her work is a continuous series that sees her return to re-experiment with forms and surfaces. She comments on having her previous pieces around her whilst she works:

“It's like my sketchbook. I think: “How did I get that spout like that piece over there?” and it informs a new pot.” Or even sometimes what went wrong. I keep these notes in my head, and whilst I don’t always get it right, it’s more meaningful to me.”

Lining one wall in her studio are Schama’s art books, expressing the diverse interests that she often “dips around”, such as Rembrandt, Cy Twombly and Pierro della Francesca. In a similar way, she collects inspirations from life in her sketchbook:

“I write, rather than draw and map out pieces. When I’m making, I like to follow the material and follow the narrative of its context in my head. The context of what I’ve absorbed. I write a lot to myself about things I've noticed – something in a film, from walking down the street. I heard a harpist play the other night, and was inspired by the lines on her instrument and the way she sat, her posture. I make notes on my lived experience. That's my sketchbook. It’s become more important to my process, because I realised that the more I make and the more I write, the more I can find the nugget I’m looking for and try and tell the truth.”

Finding a “truth” or “integrity” in her expression is important for Schama. She ties this closely to theories of psychoanalysis, being drawn to the “truths” of interpersonal interactions and how this translates to her pots.

“I could say, "How are you?" and you could answer "I'm fine"; or you can really tell me what's going on. In a similar way, I can show you an image of one of my pots and there you can see it's skeleton, but you can't really see its experience. At that point, the jug or bowl is just a motif, and it’s starting with what’s familiar; like in psychonanalysis, how it’s easy to say “How are you?”, it’s easy to say “this is a jug”. But I'm interested in interiority, and how the only way that you can communicate interiority is by showing the external.”

It’s through this interest that Schama explains she often makes “counter piece” to her pots – as in psychoanalysis, “it reminds me of two sides of person, the exterior and the interior side.” In these doubles, one pot may present an individual’s outward-facing personality, whilst the other imagines a hidden interior.

When her pots are displayed together, they too become engaged in interactions: “I'm interested in conversation, in communication, in the act of listening. I did a show called "Listening Devices", where pieces were leaning towards each other and craning in, as if listening.” This animates her pots, who seem to express individuality through anthropormophic behaviours.

Conversations between personalities is something Schama is drawn to in daily life, too. “I think community is a really valuable resource for creativity.”

She finds the experience of working with others is highly generative to development:

“When teaching, you are being asked to do something for someone else or being asked to do it because that's their idea, and this can be really illuminating. You're not looking for answers, you’re just offering how "you could do it like this". When I have people sitting next to me on the wheel, we do that during the day, too; I don't really want to demonstrate, but you're welcome to watch me. Sometimes it’s when you’re demonstrating something that you suddenly think “I'm going to do that tomorrow. I haven't thought of that yet.”