Maker of the month / Renée Kilburn Ceramics
Our Maker Of The Month for June is the wonderful ceramist Renée Kilburn. Pop into EBB & FLO to see her stunning work.
With a passion for colour and form Renée creates wonderful flowers and sculptures, bringing vibrancy to homes and gardens all year round
Each piece that Renée makes comes with 30 years of knowledge, experience and passion, excellent customer care and where possible, recyclable packaging. Renée's ceramic pieces are beautiful original works of art that give joy to the viewer by evoking a smile or maybe a memory of a loved one
Renée says "I make forever colourful ceramic garden sculptures so that my customers will stop for a moment and smile and in some cases, remember a loved one. The pieces make hearts, homes and gardens come alive.
The journey started in the early 90's and in 1997 I received a BA(hons) degree in Ceramic Design at Central Saint Martin’s College in London, where I also had the opportunity to meet and work with world renowned Ceramic Artist Kate Malone and my view of ceramics changed forever.
Coming from Sweden with a minimal expression of colour and design, Kate Malone opened my eyes to a world of wonderful creations. Colour, shape, size, imagination, playfulness etc.
A customers who owns my work knows it is the only one in the world, unique and one-off."
I model ceramic flowers and other home and garden sculptures with ES40 hand building clay. It gives me the freedom to be spontaneous when working with the coiling, slab and sprig techniques without fear of cracking and warping.
The answer to the question "How long did it take you" that is asked every time I exhibit is, it takes a long time to coil the large pieces when I can progress 15cm only each day as the layer beneath has to firm up enough to take the weight of the next coil.
I then add the decoration, dry the work out and hand painting all the different colourful glazes. Also firing every piece three times takes 7 days and is a very time consuming process. Due to this, my exhibitions need to be planned many months in advance.
The method of glazing has developed during the years to a unique technique that I am alone in using. It gives me strong, frost proof outdoor stoneware pieces in everlasting bright and shiny colours.
