I’m Keith Brymer Jones, a born and bred Londoner and a potter by trade.
The first thing I ever made was a pottery owl, when I was 11 years old. The process of pottery gave me a sort of sense of escapism. It was then that I knew I wanted to be a potter and, after a brief stint as the lead singer of a punk band (!), that’s just what I did, becoming an apprentice for Harefield Pottery in London at 18. This is where I really learnt how to use traditional hard graft to make modern ceramics.
After my apprenticeship I started out at my first studio in Highgate hand-making all of my ceramics for lots of retailers including Conran, Habitat, Barneys NY, Monsoon, Laura Ashley, and Heals. It was then, about twenty years ago, I began to develop the Word Range for the first time. I was originally attracted to words because of their shapes; the bucket mug ‘hot’ is my favourite because of how symmetrical the word shape is. The range has now grown to include over 80 different words that I hope will bring smiles to people’s faces!
*Images courtesy BBC